As many of you know, I was in Vancouver for the first week of the Olympics, because when the Olympics come to your hometown, you go. And when I’m home, I always like to cook something. Not just to be nice to my parents to thank them for putting us up, but because it’s nice to get to use their huge kitchen, buy produce at Top Ten (p.s. to Boston, why have you not embraced the concept of produce stores?), use different brands of stuff, and see if they like the stuff that I like. So this time I made this “Spicy Mexican Lentil Stew,” which… I don’t know if maybe I messed it up (not impossible… far from it), but it wasn’t all that spicy. It was flavourful, and like all stews it deepened in flavour the next day, but spicy isn’t really what I’d call it. So that’s good news if you’re not into spicy things – don’t be put off, it’s delicious.

The only real alteration I made was to ditch the cilantro; I can’t handle the stuff, and my family didn’t know it was supposed to have been there, so they couldn’t miss it. Oh, and I chopped 4 stalks of celery before realizing the recipe only called for 3. P.S., on day 1 it’s basically a soup. Stew-osity comes after sitting in the fridge overnight. But since this makes tons, odds are good you’ll spend more time eating it as a stew than as a soup, so I’m leaving the title as it is.

Mexican Lentil Stew

Ingredients
2 cups dry lentils (the original recipe called for red, and that’s what I used, but only because that’s the only kind the supermarket by my parents’ house had. I wasn’t going to be picky and I don’t see why you should be either)
4 cups water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 stalks celery, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 14.5oz cans or 1 28oz can diced tomatoes (I’d have used the fire-roasted kind if the store had had them)
4 cups vegetable broth (I’d have used my own stock if I’d been at home… alas)
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cumin
10 dashes hot sauce (although the original recipe said you could go up to as many as 15, and if you want any spiciness to speak of, you’ll probably want to do that, since 10 was basically unnoticeable)
1 lime, sliced into quarters or 8ths

Method
Put the lentils and water in a pot and bring to a boil.
Turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, saute the onion in the olive oil in the bottom of a big stew pot.
A couple minutes later, add the garlic.
Next, throw in the celery.
Keep sauteeing everything until the onions and garlic just start to change colour – you’re not really trying to brown things here, but it’s obviously impossible to stop just before they get brown.
At this point, dump in all the rest of the ingredients except the lime and the lentils (which might not be quite ready yet anyway).
Once it’s hot, the lentils ought to be ready (by which I mean they’ve absorbed all the water), so throw those bad boys in as well.
Give everything a good hearty stir and don’t be too precious about it, go ahead and bash some of those lentils around a bit. Breaking them will allow them to thicken up the stew so it’s less of a soup.
Heat through.
Serve with a lime wedge, which you can squeeze into your bowl to suit your taste.

Also, can we talk about my adoptee? Crystal, she of the Cozy Kitchen, is the new foodblogger I’m mentoring through Adopt-A-Blogger 4. She’s just redesigned her site and it’s super inviting, so you should all go check it out. While you’re there, be sure to coo at her adorable son and vote in her weekly poll. It’s a great idea to build community, so go help her build it by being a part of it!