Slow Cooker Dahl

If you’ve been investigating my recipes for a little while now, you’ve probably become aware that at this point in my life, I’m rather lazy. Incredibly so in fact. I don’t particularly indulge in the creative process of cooking and tend to rush through it thinking of all the other things I’d rather be doing (perhaps in the future in another time and place, when my mind is a calm, serene, open expansiveness of love I’ll get into it more?). Because of this, I tend to make things that are disgustingly quick, easy and of course, healthy. (Please, God. Don’t let me be the only one on earth who finds cooking a bit of a pain in the proverbial! Sigh. One day… when I have a live in, organic gourmet vegan chef who will delicately feed me ripe, juicy grapes one by one, permacultured in my own backyard…)

My mum (thank you Mum!) gave me her crock pot recently and it’s true, I’m in LOOOOOOOOVE! Chucking stuff in a big pot and pressing “GO” just fills me with a sense of lightness, freedom and copious congratulations over what an AWESOME wife and cook I am. Grin. So here is my latest offering! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• I cup of red lentils
• 3 cups of water
• any kind of vegies you want – carrots, tatoes, pumpkin – cut into BIG chunks (you can even add leafy greens but I wouldn’t put them in till about 20 minutes before the slow cooker time is up or they’ll go to mushy)
• I tsp (level or heaped, depending on how spicy you like things) of the following:
  chilli powder (or 2 fresh chillies cut in half)
  ginger powder (again, fresh here is always best!)
  cumin powder
  tumeric (fresh tumeric is amazing! You can use it for heaps of other very cool things too like colds and flus, breathing difficulties and digestive stuff. It’s been shown in several studies now to have a very good effect on many kinds of cancer – particularly prostrate and inflammatory bowel disease.)
• one large white or brown onion
• salt to taste (don’t be afraid of salt – it makes stuff taste GOOD! Most folk I know underuse salt when they cook Indian so it never tastes quite like it does in the restaurants. Salt is the key! Use a good quality sea salt.)

Method

1. Chop the onion up and fry it in a pan along with the powdered spices (don’t fry the fresh ones – just add them to the dahl in chunks of your liking). Fry it till the onion’s transparent and you can smell all that yummyness in the air. Coconut oil is the best oil to use for cooking but do shop around a bit – some brands have a really strong taste that can impact the end result. I’m using Elaeis Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil at the moment and I love it!
2. Chuck all the other ingredients (bar the leafy greens) in your slow cooker. You can add more water if you want more of a traditional dahl soupy texture.
3. Set it on low, go about your day and come back 6 – 8 hours later
4. A bit before you’re ready to eat, bung on some rice and away you go! A very nourishing meal without the rice though.
5. Mmmmm… ladle out into bowls and sprinkle with something green – coriander is perfect but shallots are just as good! You can even add a little sour yoghurt if that suits you for the true Indian flavour combo…