Day 1 of No Processed Carbs: Lentil Salad

Starting from the 29th of January, I will be heading to work with another WASH organization  (Water & Sanitation) in Tanzania. Based on my understanding of Tanzania’s food is usually eaten with rice, chapati, and ugali (maize porridge). Most of the time I spent my time in the countryside where restaurants lack proper refrigeration. This mean, eating meat can lead to fun stomach activities aka shitting your pants. Not that I won’t eat it, if the restaurant looks relatively clean or looks/smells good I will definitely have some. Since I know my future diet will probably consist of a lot of processed carbs and starch, I want to prepare my stomach and eat very healthy before heading there which led me to the one week of no processed carb: white rice, bread, frozen potato patties, chapati, roti.

Taking processed carb like noodles and rice away from a Chinese girl and a Pakistani boy is taking our lifeline away. It is the core of our diet, that is in almost every dish from our cuisines. Which is more of the reason why this upcoming week we are having a week of non-processed carb week because we are plumping up. Furqan would say we are plumping up to keep us warm in the winter, but no we are just becoming rounder and rounder like seals.

So I tried making lentil falafel, then I realize I need to put all purpose flour to get the lentil to stick together. Due to this sad sad news, I changed the falafel to a lentil salad for tonight so I wouldn’t have to put in flour.  It is very light and hearty!

Ingredients for Baked Lentils

• 1 cup of dry lentil
• 1 tsp of garlic paste
• 1/4 cup of cut cilantro
• 1/4 large yellow onion (brunoise dice)
• 1/2 tsp of lemon zest
• 2 tbsp of lemon juice
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp of cumin seed

Salad Ingredients

• 1 large carrot Batonnet cut, or you can put bake sweet potato
• 1/2 cup of cucumber cut in cubes
• 1/2 cup of tomato
• 1/2- 1 cup of spinach cut
• 2 tbsp of lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

Direction for the Baked Lentils:

1. Cook 1 cup of dry lentil with 3 cups of water until water is gone (12-15 minutes) put on medium heat.
2. Preheat the oven at 375 while the lentil is cooking
3. Once lentil is cook, all of the ingredients together
4. Spread it over a baking pan and put it in the oven for 10 minutes
5. Turn occasionally to let it golden

Putting Together the Salad

1. while you are baking the lentil you can also bake the carrots for 10-12 minutes, drizzle with a little olive oil
2. Once the lentil and carrots/sweet potato cools down. Mix together with the salad
3. Add the lemon, olive oil, salt, black papper last, mix throughly

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