Blog >> What’s for dinner?

What’s for dinner?

Those Bizipozatourists who have passed through Leorza this summer have little choice but to get involved in life here. That it would seem, is part of the charm. We manage an organic garden and the very least that you will be expected to do is water it. Watering the garden on a warm summers evening is always time well spent. Other travellers who have happened by this summer have sometimes found themselves involved in trickier tasks though.

 

 

 

 

 

Where do lentils come from?

A friend with an organic farm supplied us with eight sacks of lentil plants.  I knew that the lentil belongs to the pea family and that the lentils presumably come in a pod.  I was rather more surprised to discover that each pod contains one or sometimes two lentils.  This poses a bit of a problem when it comes to shelling them.  We tried everything and in the end came up with something approaching a system.

The plant

 

 

 

 

First trample the plants to release the lentils…

 

 

 

 

Pick out all the stalks…

 

 

 

 

 

Sieve and let the wind blow away the chaff

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lentils for dinner.  The best you ever tasted!

 

 

 

 

I guess that looks easy.  It wasn’t!  It was however, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon amongst friends with the common intention of eating well.  We got around 25kg of lentils out of the eight sacks of plant material.  I guess we won’t be buying lentils for a while!

Other mental lentil facts…

With about 30% of their calories from protein, lentils have the third-highest level of protein, by weight, of any legume or nut, after soybeans and hemp. Proteins include the essential amino acids isoleucine and lysine, and lentils are an essential source of inexpensive protein in many parts of the world, especially in West Asia and the Indian subcontinent, which have large vegetarian populations. Lentils are deficient in two essential amino acids, methionine and cysteine.  However, sprouted lentils contain sufficient levels of all essential amino acids, including methionine and cysteine.

Lentils contain dietary inhibitors but soaking the lentils over night reduces the concentration considerably.  On egin!

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