Today's Recipe: Lentils

For today's meal, and some of tomorrow's, I made some lentils. I think this recipe is pretty good, and it's quick.
INGREDIENTS:
1 Lb of lentils
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 8 oz can of tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 yellow onion
about a teaspoon of dried chili peppers (the kind that come with pizza)
Salt (optional)
Cooking and prep time: 20-30 mins.


1. Rinse lentils.
2. Cook lentils. Set the lentils in a pot covering them about an inch above. Put in the half onion and one garlic clove, while it cooks.
3. Crush the other garlic clove with the 1/2 teaspoon of cumin and peppers in a molcajete. 
4. When the lentils become soft, put in the crushed ingredients and add in the tomato sauce. Stir and salt to flavor. Add as much salt as needed.  NOTE: you might need to add more water, if it evaporates. This goes great with tortillas de maiz!

Recipe 2: Black Beans

If one enjoys black beans, but also enjoys putting in little effort, then this recipe is for you! I've made black beans twice with this recipe. The first time was without an orange, and the second time was with one. I didn't care for the orange flavor in mine, but someone else might. Via: www.epicurious.com. 

YIELD 

6 to 8 people 

ACTIVE TIME 

30 minutes

TOTAL TIME 

2 to 3 hours

INGREDIENTS

1. • 1 pound dried black beans, rinsed and picked over
   • 8 medium cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
   • 1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced in half, with enough of the root end intact that the onion doesn't fall apart
   • 1 juicing orange, rinsed and sliced in half
   • Kosher salt

PREPARATION

1. 1. Procedures 1 Place beans in a large pot and add water until beans are submerged by 3 to 4 inches. Add the garlic and onion, squeeze in orange juice, then add the squeezed orange halves. Cover and place over high heat until water comes to a boil, then uncover pot and reduce heat to a bare simmer. Cook until beans are completely tender and creamy, 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally, and adding water if tops of beans become exposed. 2 Remove orange and onion halves. Increase heat to medium and simmer, stirring frequently, until reduced to a thick, creamy sauce that clings to the beans, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Serve over rice or as a side with fresh cilantro and a dash or two of hot sauce.

The First Recipe

I must begin this post with the truth: I'm lazy. So, whenever I find a simple and tasty recipe, I use it over and over again. Because of this recipe's simplicity, I cook this about once a week. It's tasty, simple, and most importantly, healthy. I found this on cleangreensimple.com. 

Ingredients:

• 1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
• 1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder (feel free to use 2-3 cloves fresh)
• 1/2 tsp onion powder (feel free to use 1/2 a fresh onion, minced)
• Pinch red pepper flakes (add a few pinches if you like your sauce to have a little heat)
• Pinch black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium heat until boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for at least 20 minutes, up to an hour. 

That's all! Review the whole recipe here! 

-Steven C. 

A New Identity...

From the Babylon Bee:

PALO ALTO, CA—After reviewing a local teenage girl’s Tumblr blog, the American Psychological Association confirmed Tuesday morning that “tater tots” is now a distinct and definable gender, and should be afforded the same protections that the other 43,492 genders currently enjoy.

The findings came as doctors on the board of the APA were alerted to local Tumblr user Katniss Sprinkle, who had made the announcement just one week prior that she no longer identified as a human girl but rather felt her gender most closely aligned with that of the fried, grated potato dish popular at school cafeterias.

“I just don’t feel comfortable calling my biologically female self a female any longer,” the brave young tater tot said in an interview over Snapchat as she applied a goofy filter to make herself look like a bumble bee. “My emotions are the best judge of my reality, and they’re telling me I’m a dish of fried potatoes—so lay off me, binary cishets.”... 

You say potato, I say that's not a gender... 

Power in the Name

After a large portion of a few peoples' evening being spent on creating a name, one might be curious as to why this one was picked. On the surface, it seems as though one is just picking from whatever cliches from popular culture that would seem to fit into some gist of this blog. Or possibly it came from some segment of nightly TV, in which people give funny anecdotes to a formulaic comedian. In some sense, it is both: we are to give some anecdotes and we wish that our dietary lifestyle would go into the popular psyche, at least I do. However. the name carries something more meaningful.

Sometime last year, around this time, my German professor talked about "cultural starches". He noticed that there were many ethnicities in our class and asked what were our cultural food staples. At first, it sounded as though we were naming lists of stereotypes, as if FOX news was doing a documentary on the American "melting pot", and doing so at a Hometown Buffet. Our professor then argued that cultural staples were starches: Latin Americans have beans, corn and potatoes, whereas Asians in the East have rice, and the Middle East has grains, and so on and so forth. The crux of all our diets is starch based. A few months before, I read Dr. McDougall's Starch Solution and knew that, but my professor had this knowledge by mere linguistic observation. He is a historical linguist and knew that there is a connection between food and language, or rather humans, society and food. Humans need these things to survive. Sometime after, we learned how to say good day, "Guten Tag", reflecting another element of human society, politeness. Because "Tag" is "day", this blog's name is "The Hash Tag", and it is hoped that it will become a part of our daily consumption.
-Steven C.