Yellow Lentils!

This dinner was wheat/gluten-free, one for you, Susan!
A few days ago, I had pressure-cooked some lentils with a little garlic powder and spices -- I think I used cumin and black pepper. The pressure cooker is amazing for dried beans. The split yellow lentils cooked in 8 minutes (probably could have been less, but I didn't want to risk it). A 4:1 ratio of water to lentils is good, and won't burn even if you cook them a little too long. If you're not using a pressure-cooker, dried lentils will take about 30 minutes to cook. I like this website http://www.beanslentils.com/preparelentils.htm for making a good time estimate.

Lentils:
3/4 cup split yellow lentils, dry
approx. 4 cups water
2 tbsp tomato soup concentrate
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp garlic powder

For tonight's dinner, we had rice with a lentil-based sauce on top. While the rice is cooking (about 15 minutes, 2:1 ratio of water to rice), I drained most of the water from the lentils and mixed them up with some other things to make the sauce.

Lentil Sauce:
1 cup prepared lentils (a little less than half of the lentils from above)
1 apple, diced
handful of raisins
sprinkle of Cajun spice (or something else spicy?)
sprinkle of Italian spice (or a little basil?)
broccoli -- 3 or 4 "trees"
leftover rice -- not necessary, but we had some in the fridge. it gets served with rice, anyways, so the extra was no harm/no foul

I cooked all that on a low heat for about 15 minutes, all the time that it took the rice to cook. Obviously, the spices and other additions to the lentils can be whatever suits your fancy. I am vegetarian, but Travis ate his portion with pieces of pork and a chopped up hot dog...

Rating: "I don't think I like lentils very much. I'm not a good judge, I'll eat anything! Everything is good that I don't make..." haha