Lentil Chili

We tried out the lemonade. I was slightly disappointed that it didn't taste special. It was still overly sweet, even after cutting a whole cup of sugar (next time I might cut it to 1 1/2 cups). To me, it tasted like Kool-aid Lemonade. I had expected something that would be like nothing I could get at the store. It's still good and the family thinks it's the best thing ever. Yesterday's menu: Breakfast - grits with just a little butter, Lunch - dinner leftovers, Dinner - spaghetti with homemade sauce (4 slices pepper bacon, 2 cans low salt tomato sauce, onion and garlic powders), salad. I stopped by the store to pick up the pasta since we're not buying it anymore and the family really wanted pasta. Eggs were on sale 99 cents a dozen so I picked up two. My plan was to buy some parmesan cheese but I only had 5 dollars. The pasta was $1.50 and I wanted two dozen eggs since we were starting to go through them fast again and Monday I paid $1.89 for a dozen. That didn't leave me much for cheese and the parmesan was nearly $3. I opted for cheese sticks - 1 mozzarella and 2 cheddar at 3 for $1. It's makes for pricier cheese per ounce but all I wanted was some for dinner as a treat so this worked perfectly. We're not eating cheese right now while we're trying to get my husband off of dairy. I noticed we've really missed it because I bought real butter on Monday (with the eggs to make the lemon curd) and we're going through it rather fast. It didn't help that we used nearly half of the butter in making the lemon curd. I don't have a recipe that I have made this week to share with you. I would have loved to shared my husband's soup recipe but it was really a dump of what we had in the kitchen (I think he used split peas instead of lentils but I haven't double checked). I have shared my lentil chili recipe just this last December so I thought - I'll share the famous Lentil Festival Chili with you. This is an award winning chili that is served every year during the Lentil Festival. They serve it from this huge bowl and it's free for everyone to come eat. It's so good and this recipe, though smaller than what they use, still makes a good vat of chili. Every year they do a lentil recipe contest so you may be seeing some more recipes posted as we try to find the perfect entry. World’s Largest Bowl of Lentil Chili Submitted By: National Lentil Festival -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INGREDIENTS Lentils: 2 2/3 Cups Water: 3 Quarts + 1 Cup Onions, diced: 2/3 Cup Celery, diced: 1/3 Cup Carrots, diced: 1/3 Cup Tomato puree: 17 Oz. Pace brand salsa: 1 Cups + 1 Tablespoon Chili powder, mild: 2 Tablespoon Cumin: 1 Tablespoon Granulated garlic: 1 Tablespoon Granulated sugar: 2 Tablespoons Kosher salt: 1 1/2 Tablespoons Crushed red chili flakes: 1/2 Teaspoon 2/3 Cup water and 1/4 Cup cornstarch, stirred into a slurry Cinnamon: 1/2 Teaspoon Chopped cilantro: 1 Tablespoon Mexican chocolate: 2 oz. Green bell pepper, diced: 1/3 Cup Red bell pepper, diced: 1/3 Cup -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIRECTIONS 1. DO NOT INCLUDE CILANTRO OR CORNSTARCH SLURRY AT THIS TIME. Mix all ingredients together (EXCEPT cilantro and cornstarch slurry), bring to a boil, stir and cook (will take a couple of hours) until lentils are tender. 2. When the lentils are tender and the broth is well blended, add the cornstarch slurry and continue cooking until the chili consistency is very uniform. 3. Just before serving: add the cilantro, stir, serve.