My Favorite Recipes with Red Beans or Lentils

Sorry for the hiatus. I don't know what I've been busy doing, but clearly blogging has not been a top priority.

One thing I have been doing for the last few months is trying new lentil and bean recipes. As I mentioned once before, we bought 25 pounds of red beans and 25 pounds of lentils in December. I've been working on finding and trying recipes that use beans and lentils.

I'm not going to lie. I regret that we purchased red beans instead of black beans. At that time I thought this was a good idea because we had so many cans of black beans. But upon reflection, I realize that we had so many cans of black beans because that is what we like best. Nonetheless, I have a few ways to prepare red beans that I've found to be yummy:

• Kidney Bean Curry - In actuality, I haven't made this one in a while, but by golly I ought to. (Obviously, I sub red beans for kidney.)
• Red Beans and Rice from Our Best Bites - Jenn recommended this, and as soon as Eric tasted it he was in love. He said it was the closest to Brazilian rice and beans that he's had since living in Brazil. We've made it several times. The recipe doesn't call for soaking the beans overnight, but I do it anyway because it helps get rid of some of the toxins that cause digestive issues. (Ahem.)
• Southwest Rice and Bean Salad from Mel's Kitchen Cafe - We've made this time and time again, and it's always a hit. It's easy to toy with the ingredients to suit your own needs.
• Red Lentil Curry - This calls for split red lentils, but I use plain green lentils, and it works just fine.
• Carrot Soup - So delicious. So easy. So freezable. So healthy.

There are a few other Indian lentil dishes that I like to make. Their recipes are found in The Best Ever Curry Cookbook, and it's possible that one of these days I will blog about them.

And of those recipes, I hope you'll note that only one of them does not involve cilantro. That's pretty much par for the course around this house.