Hearty Lentil Stew

This was made while I was at work today by my wonderful husband. When I got home the house smelled so nice and welcoming. Though this stew was made with chicken broth, it was an another attempt to eat a meatless meal.  I found the recipe in a bargain book I bought at Barnes & Noble.  The book is called Slow Cooker Magic in Minutes.  Unfortunately it seems it isn't available anymore because we've made use of many of the recipes in this book but fortunately I always seem to find the exact recipe online somewhere.  This fact though convenient, does not bode well for the future of cookbooks in my opinion.  You might find yourselves asking why buy a cookbook when you can just find a recipe online. 

Anyway the recipe can be found here on this TLC website.  Pretty dandy if I say so myself.  So the review...  Well my husband liked it and so did I.  I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5 I suppose.  It was easy to make, so he says, and convenient.  One bowl was filling enough though next time we might add some crusty bread to accompany the stew.  We have enough for another meal one evening.  The changes we made were to use frozen cauliflower and to make our own salt free chunky tomato sauce.  My husband thinks maybe fresh cauliflower would be a little crunchier still.  Everything was quite soft but we suspect that is the reason for adding the dry roasted peanuts on top of the stew. 

For the chunky tomato sauce I just combined a can (15 oz) of unsalted chunky tomatoes, 1 tbsp of concentrated tomato paste (365 Whole Foods), 1/2 can of water, 3 cloves of garlic minced, 3 large basil leaves minced, and sprinkled in some oregano (about 1 tbsp).  The basil was from our garden so of course that gets me excited.  It makes me wonder though if I will ever get over the joy of eating food that I've grown?  Reminds me of my brother-in-law really.  He raises rabbits for food and I am starting to understand more why he is so keen.  If you aren't squeamish about fresh meat and butchering you could check out his blog, dtulkin's posterous.  His Facebook page is called FogCity Rabbitry.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.