Spicy Lentils with Sweet Potatoes and Kale

Last night we continued our healthy eating with a vegetarian meal, Spicy Lentils with Sweet Potatoes and Kale. I love meat! I could never become a fulltime vegetarian or vegan but every once in a while it’s nice to have a meal full of veggies! This is another recipe that Sarah found on Eat, Live, Run. The blog has so many great recipes and tons of great food pictures. The next recipe I want to try from it is for mint chocolate stuffed cookies! Not super healthy but they sound delicious!

There are two ingredients in this dish that make it really healthy. The first being kale which is an excellent source of beta carotene, vitamin K, and vitamin C. It also has a good amount of calcium. Lentils are also super healthy with about 30% of their calories from protein. Lentils also contain dietary fiber, folate, vitamin B1, and minerals. Health magazine has selected lentils as one of the five healthiest foods. Before anyone thinks that I am a dietitian or nutritionist I stole all of this information from Wikipedia! The recipe is below but can also be found here – Spicy Lentils with Sweet Potatoes and Kale – there are tons of very pretty pictures here, at least better then the picture I took with my BlackBerry.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup green lentils
• 1/2 large carrot, peeled and small diced
• 1/4 cup small diced onion
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1 stalk celery, small diced
• 1 bunch kale, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1 serrano pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt (or, to taste)
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped into small 1/4-1/2″ cubes
• 2 tsp cooking oil
• 2 cups vegetable (or chicken) stock

Directions:

Heat the oil in a medium sized pot. Once hot, add the onion, celery, carrot and sweet potato and cook for about six minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and kale and continue cooking until kale wilts.

Add the lentils, bay leaf, rosemary sprigs, serrano pepper and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes until lentils are tender and have absorbed most of the liquid.

Season with salt to taste and remove the bay leave, chile pepper and rosemary sprigs before serving.

I continued my healthy eating today by visiting a brand new taco stand here in Ottawa. Taco Lot is located right next to Suzie Q doughnuts in Hintonburg. Today was their first day open and we were there close to their noon opening. On the menu today was either beef or chicken tacos. So I went with half and half – one beef and one chicken. The tacos were great, the meat was cooked well and the salsa had a bright fresh flavor to it. The menu will be expanding to include more items and I can’t wait to go back to try some more. Next time you’re looking for a quick lunch, check out the Taco Lot!