White Orchid Melody Blog

Two of my favorite things: Lentils and Potatoes! Yum! This was a fairly quick meal and very hearty and yummy. Alex loved it! (He also loves to drink water out of a glass filled with bread and cheese, but we won’t hold that against him.)

Lentil Potato Bake

4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, smushed a bit
1/4 tsp thyme
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk

2 cups dried lentils (any kind is fine, I used the plain brown ones)
1 onion, diced
1 cup frozen broccoli
1 cup frozen green beans
1/4 cup tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine (optional)
1 tbsp butter
celery seed, parsley, salt, pepper

Cook potatoes and garlic cloves in a pot of boiling water until tender. Drain. Mash. Stir in thyme, butter, and milk.

While potatoes are cooking, cook lentils until tender.

In a large skillet, sauté onions in olive oil. Add broccoli, green beans and cook until thawed and tender. Pour in wine to deglaze skillet. Stir in tomato puree and paste. Add a sprinkle of celery seed, parsley, salt, and pepper to taste. Allow to simmer. When lentils are done, add them to the vegetable mixture. Stir in butter to finish.

Spread lentil-veggie mixture in a casserole dish (I used my large rectangular corningware). Top with potatoes and place in a 400 degree oven. Heat for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are just starting to brown. (I also threw some grated parmesan on top before baking! Yum!)

It’s fairly healthy comfort food!

We got the last few necessities for the baby this weekend. We went to the Cotton Babies store here and got a stash of cloth diapers. I’d already purchased 4 one size pocket diapers that were a sampler pack of different brands. Our favorite was the bumGenius. So we bought 6 more of those. We also bought 5 bumGenius all-in-ones. They don’t have the pocket to stuff, so they are more convenient, but they come sized so you have to buy more as the baby grows. We got them in the used bin for $10 each though (as opposed to $16 new). That gives us 15 diapers to start with. When we figure out what really works we’ll buy some more. We may not like dealing with the pockets, who knows until you try?

We also got the Chicco Travel System Saturday. Sunday morning we put it together. It was a bit daunting when we first took it out of the box, but came together fairly easily. We tried it out with a teddy bear, which is completely misleading since it is going to be about 9 lbs heavier with baby in tow! But it was fun. We made a video of it with the digital camcorder that Brian’s parents got us for the baby. One day he’ll be able to watch it and see how brilliant his parents were, ha!

So now we are pretty well set up, just waiting for him to make his grand appearance. I’m sure I’ll be more than ready by the end of January. In the meantime, I’m going to try to enjoy the luxury of quiet and solitude.