LENTIL AND PASTA LOAFTonight's dinner, a great and easy recipe from what I believe to be a great book! It's the Vegetarian Book from the 'Collector's Edition' of cook books (a great find, I found it in a discount book store one day!)
Serves 4
Prep Time - 12 min Cooking Time - 56 min
Don't let the cooking time fool you, it's a very easy lazy day recipe, because once it's in the oven, you can forget about it until it's time to eat.
INGREDIENTS
75g small pasta shapes
(we generally use elbows, but anything you have would work!)125g brown lentils
2 cups wholemeal bread crumbs
(can be store bought or home made from stale bread. Doesn't necessarily have to be wholemeal, we actually use wholegrain for this meal and it tastes fantastic!)1 onion, grated
1 carrot, grated
2 celery, chopped
60g pine nuts
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
black pepper
METHOD:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C, and grease a loaf tin (11x21cm is best, but whatever you have, just don't make the loaf too thin or too fat!). Cook the pasta in lots of salted boiling water in a large saucepan for 8 minutes or until al dente). Drain pasta. Wash and drain lentils.
2. Place pasta, lentils, breadcrumbs, onion, carrot, celery, pine nuts, tomato paste, water, eggs, Worcesteshire sauce and black pepper (to taste) in a bowl, and mix to combine. Spoon mixture into tin and bake for 45 minutes or until loaf is firm.
The recipe is actually great on it's own, but depending on how many you're feeding (there's 3 of us) you may want to add a salad or garlic bread to the table. Our dog Jasper also decided he thoroughly enjoyed the slice we saved for him, so great for us humans and dogs alike!
Enjoy!
Anja
Labels: lazy day, pasta, vegetarian
