Happy Mrs. Monday everyone! Today, I bring you a re-do of one of my first failures! Before I met and fell in love with Mr. FBBQ, I didn’t cook much. I was a vegetarian and mostly vegan, but couldn’t be bothered to explore recipes and try out new things. Needless to say, my diet was limited. I ate a lot of boring salads and sandwiches. Mac ‘n cheese and pizza were common staples for me. Soup from a can. I didn’t even really make rice and vegetables that often. Fast-forward to Mr. FBBQ and I decided to give cooking a shot. Ironically, I don’t cook for Mr. FBBQ. Sometimes, he will try the stuff I make, but mostly it’s me that eats it. One of the first things I decided to try cooking was this Sweet Potato and Lentil Casserole. Mr. FBBQ was out of town at the time. I remember talking to him over the phone about my failed attempt at dinner. It’s all pretty funny now!
I thought I had done everything right! Gathered my sweet potatoes and lentils. Followed the recipe (sort of). Baked my casserole. Sat down to enjoy…and discovered that I should have cooked the lentils first before putting them into the casserole. I ended up with a crunchy casserole that was beyond saving. Lesson learned.
I decided to give this another try. I am so glad I did! It turned out delicious and not crunchy at all!!
To start, I once again gathered my sweet potatoes and lentils. This time, I cooked the lentils! What an idea!! While those were boiling, I added some water to a large saucepan and cooked the onions and red and green bell peppers I had chopped up earlier. I threw some garlic in that mix too.
While all that was going on, I cubed the sweet potatoes in to small bits and steamed them in my trusty vegetable steamer!
The lentils, peppers, onion, and sweet potatoes then got mixed into a big bowl. I added a little bit of lemon juice and a dash of cornmeal. This all went into a very large Pyrex baking dish. I then topped this mixture with some BBQ sauce. A note about the BBQ sauce-Mr. FBBQ wanted me to use his homemade BBQ sauce. “It’s not spicy at all!” That’s what he told me. As some of you many know, I like less than zero spice. Mr. FBBQ has no taste buds left from the ridiculous amount of spice he likes. We are total opposites. So, he begged and pleaded and cajoled me into tasting a little bit of his homemade sauce. News Flash, it was spicy. My mouth burned the rest of the night. He’s gotten very comfortable lying to me. Not spicy, my butt. I most definitely did not use his homemade BBQ sauce!
?ForensicBBQ commentary: You should’ve used it. And it wasn’t spicy… it was flavorful, robust.. Had some zest.. but not spicy.
Back to our dish! Bake the casserole for about a half hour at 375 degrees. It is then ready to eat! This recipe made so much that I was able to share with my friend Jared from work. Shoutout to Jared for eating healthy!! Hopefully he enjoyed this as much as I did!!!
