Meals between wheels

A facebook cover photo that proves you're deep and interesting should include massive stairs, like those in front of a palace or a museum. I've seen a lot of interesting people with them. For balance, the following cover photo usually showcases them slightly drunk, at the beach or in equally embarrassing situations, such as in front of a courthouse. On the plus side, courthouses also have massive stairs. But it has nothing to do with today's story.

This weekend was set for cooking. Cooking requires a complex combination of factors in precise percentages, such as advanced planning, hunger, lack of other options during the day the cooking is supposed to happen and remembering to buy ingredients. It's way easier to cook if you do have the ingredients. Also, you're more motivated as you know they'll go bad and it's not good to waste food. One of the main bullets on the shopping list says 'What other crap was I supposed to buy?' To this day, the mystery remains unsolved and the bullet is still there. Un-ticked.

Anyway, off to cooking. Since it was decided to be vegetarian, it was supposed to be various vegetables stuffed with a tasty vegetarian filling, baked in the oven for a certain amount of time until they look even more tasty than before they went in. Since this is not a cooking blog, I will not focus on such details as quantities, timing at each step or pictures at various stages of the process. There are no pictures in this blog, based on a decision I'm sticking with for the sake of a whim continuity. Anyway, the focus here is time and superb coordination during cooking, rather than the recipe. Today's cooking had to adapt around the complicate schedule of the 3 Moto Grand Prix races at Assen (it's a Dutch circuit, not a German porn). Rain was announced, which meant races could be delayed; this made things even more challenging.

First, the filling, based on red lentils and caramelized onions. Someone mentioned the other day lentils were tasty, not to mention nutritious qualities (which are not that relevant, but they don't hurt, either). I had never cooked lentils before, so I looked on the internet for how to cook lentils. For those who don't know, lentils are supposed to be soaked for 12 hours. Initially, I was thinking to cook them 2 days ago, but for various reasons everything was delayed till today (2 days later, in case you did not pay attention), so the lentils have been soaked thoroughly for about 60 hours (I wouldn't wash the same bowl twice). Yesterday evening I noticed the 12-hours interval is for green lentils, as opposed to red, for which 30 minutes are enough. Anyway, the wheels were already in motion, so there we go. Red lentils are interesting because of their orange colour. After soaking they turn a bit pinkish, and after boiling (after 60 hours of soaking they were still a bit chewy, so off to the stove they went) they get a very nice yellowish colour. The curry powder may have contributed a bit to the yellowish shade, though. In their defense, the label on the bag of lentils had a red background, so there is a bit of truth to their name. Since this was supposed to be experimentation, the condiments were entirely up to me (hint: curry powder and sweet paprika are a rather good choice).

As the lentils boiled -the upside of a thorough soak is a surprisingly short time required for the boiling until they're done- it was time to do something else. Not enough time for anything complicated, so I chopped the onions and ate some fruit. Eating apricots and grapes can be a very emotional thing. Or maybe chopping onions is, not sure. As the boiling completed, I mixed in the rest of the condiments, set everything aside, and off to see the first race. Very nice and exciting race, as usual. A Spanish guy won, and as I was already fed up with the Spanish anthem I skipped the champagne fight and went back to the kitchen.

Time for the caramelized onions. It's easier than it sounds, as long as a bit of attention is paid. And remembering to mix and toss them every once in a while for uniform colour, doneness and yum factor. And, as opposed to onion soup, this does not take several weeks during which at least three people take eight-hours shifts to supervise the process. It's actually quite fast, even on a low flame (you don't want to be too fast, right?). Between stirring the onions there was enough time to prepare the vegetables for the (already delicious, judging by the smell) filling. It was supposed to be tomatoes, eggplants and bell peppers. Since the eggplants were highjacked in a mutabal yesterday, I settled for tomatoes and bell peppers only. Quick and straightforward: try to make as much room as possible without poking holes (as a side-note, I think avocado skins could make a good shell for holding stuff; I didn't have any available to test, so maybe another time). The second race was delayed 20 minutes, due to weather conditions. As more time was available, the inner tomato bits removed a bit earlier went straight into the pan, as a bonus for the onions. Another bonus was some almond meal, which tied everything together quite nicely (both ideas proved to be quite smart). Chopped cilantro and parsley followed, with a few drops of hot sauce along with other condiments. Once everything was nicely mixed I put the pan aside to cool (still covered, for extra softness) and went back to the telly just in time for the warm-up lap. Not as dramatic as the first race, but at least there was a nicer anthem at the end.

The break between the second and third race was less challenging, as I remembered Brazil is playing Chile in a couple of hours and there is plenty of time. I had some more fruit instead and fell asleep in the second half of the third race (it wasn't that exciting after). All in all, great timing, (almost) great races and great food. It's also very healthy, but hey, nobody's perfect.