78 Days-If at First You Don't Succeed

For the past two days my dehydrator has been humming away.  It's been making the house smell rather good.  I've been tackling lunch foods.  I've selected five different recipes for my lunches.  All of them to be eaten cold with (or without) cheese, summer sausage, and something bread like.

For the re-fried beans I started with one can of pinto beans and it seemed like only minutes later I had re-fried beans.  I used up my other four cans on pinto beans.

 

Five cans worth of re-fried beans

Re-fried Black Beans

2 cups canned Pinto beans

1/2 cup chicken stock (or water)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chicken Bouillon (omit if using stock)

1 teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

Next was tapenade-olive past.  Again, very quick to make. 

Lentil Tapenade almost dry

Castle's Lentil Tapenade
 

1/4 cup (dry) red lentils
1/2 t vegetable or chicken bouillon or stock
1/4 t garlic powder

1 T  roasted red pepper, cut tiny
1 T  olives
1 T lemon juice
1 t dried parsley
black pepper to taste

Cook the lentils in the stock for more flavor.  I've adjusted the recipe for a larger batch: 3 cup dry red lentils cooked in 1 cup stock and 3 cups water.  3 cans of olives seasoned to taste.  That gives me about 4 trays to dehydrate. 

I had cooked more lentils than I had olives so I used the rest of the lentils in another lunch recipe.  I choose red lentils because they pack in 170 calories in each uncooked quarter cup serving.  And it's 13 grams of protein per serving.  Taste-wise it doesn't seem to have much of a taste of its own, but does pick up the taste of what it is cooked in and mixed with. 

Corn and Lentil Salad

Re-fried beans-dried.

1/4 cup (cooked) red lentils
1/4 cup corn
1/2 teaspoon chicken or vegetable bullion
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon onion flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 T orange juice
salt and pepper to taste

Next time I think I'll add roasted red peppers to this one.  It looks bland.