Lentil, Roasted Red Pepper, and Spinach Vegetable Loaf...

Hey, that looks pretty good!

My sister has been pestering me to send her a delicious lentil loaf recipe that my wife and I prepared several weeks ago.  Actually, I had nothing to do with making it, but I did clean up the dishes.

We kinda have that arrangement.

Before giving up meat, traditional meat loaf was one of my favorite dishes ever.  Aside from tasting delicious right out of the oven, the leftovers always made fantastic cold meat loaf sandwiches.  Just slather some grainy mustard on two pieces of whole wheat bread, slice off a few hunks of loaf, and slap that firm, luscious meat between the bread.

Now that meals made from mammals are in our past, we've been looking for a suitable dish to fill the 'meat loaf void'.  This vegetable loaf recipe from Woman's Day Magazine is just the ticket.

Yes, I did say Woman's Day Magazine.

It was a bit surprising to me that this delicious recipe would come from such a publication.  As far as culinary guidance, I was always under the assumption that Woman's Day might instruct me on how to boil water for pasta, or how to reseal that pesky Hamburger Helper bag of spices, if you only made half the recipe.

I suppose I need to be more open-minded about such things.

As I said, my sister has been bugging me about this recipe for almost a month.

     "Dave, when are you going to send me that recipe?"

     "Soon...  I'll send it soon."

Why won't she leave me alone?  Probably because I still haven't sent it to her.  This morning, I was all set to email her the link to the recipe at Woman's Day's website.  But then I decided that this is a meal which would be right at home on this blog.

Hey Sis'!

If you want this recipe, you're gonna have to read my blog to get it!

HA!!!

On to the recipe...

Lentil, Roasted Red Pepper, and Spinach Vegetable Loaf

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 15-oz can lentils, rinsed
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 2 cups baby spinach, chopped (about 2 oz)
• 1 jarred roasted red pepper, cut into 1/2-in. pieces
• 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 6-oz package falafel mix (we used Near East)  (So did we...  )

Preparation:

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and 2 Tbsp water. Add the lentils, red onion, spinach and roasted red pepper and mix to combine; fold in the cheese.
3. Add the falafel mix and stir to combine. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet and shape into a 9 x 3½-in. loaf. Bake until the internal temperature registers 150°F, 30 to 35 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Here's a link to a printable version.

If you're not doing dairy, you can easily cut out the feta cheese.  We left it in the first time we made it, but I have a feeling that we'll be leaving it out the next time.

A funny thing happens when you don't eat dairy for a week or two, and then you try to have just a little bit of cheese with a meal.  Your guts and innards reject the dairy, get pissed off at you, and you end up spending most of your weekend in the bathroom, doubled over in discomfort, and, um...

Never mind.

And for all of you copyright Nazis out there...  No, I didn't get permission from Woman's Day to lift the recipe from their website and plagiarize it directly into my blog.  Here's the bibliographical information...

• Day Kitchen, Woman's.  "Lentil, Roasted Red Pepper, and Spinach Vegetable Loaf Recipe" Woman's Day Magazine 1 April 2011.

Still not happy?

People like you never are.

Yes, I did consider simply providing the link to the recipe instead of shamelessly copying and pasting it into my blog.  However, when I visited Woman's Day's website to find the recipe, there were too many ads, I was pressured to take a worthless online survey, the search engine was piss-poor, and the page was too slow and didn't load correctly.

The entire experience was miserable.

Rather than put my three (3) readers through hell, I've just decided to just copy and paste the entire recipe here, without permission.  Besides, it's not like I'm not giving Woman's Day the props for this delicious recipe.  So far, I've mentioned Woman's Day eight (8) separate times.

That's really good word-of-mouth marketing, which is not costing Woman's Day a single dime.

Furthermore, Woman's Day magazine is my go-to source for all sorts of feminine products and gadgets.  I mean, anytime I want to read about the latest shampoos, hairsprays, or rubber spatulas on the market, I go straight to Woman's Day...  no questions asked.

And anytime I'm in the mood to create a Mums and Limes Topiary, I head on over to Woman's Day for guidance.

There...  Happy!?

GOOD!  Now stop pestering me.

By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to Woman's Day, click HERE.



I almost forgot to mention that this beautiful photograph
of Lentil, Roasted Red Pepper, and Spinach Vegetable Loaf
was taken by photographer Con Poulos, also of
Woman's Day fame, apparently.