(smaller button below)

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—your link could muse about the best way to store dried beans or include your favorite recipe for fish, but it doesn’t have to be a recipe. If you just want to post pictures of your compost bin full of potato peels, that’s close enough.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post and join us through Mr. Linky.Here’s a Mr. Linky tutorial:

Write up a post, publish, then return here and click on Mr. Linky below. A screen will pop up where you can type in your blog name and paste in the url to your own Food on Fridays post (give us the exact link to your Food on Fridays page, not just the link to your blog).You can also visit other people’s posts by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking participants’ names–you should be taken straight to their posts.Please note: I return when possible during the day and update this post by hand to include a list of the links provided via Mr. Linky. If I can’t get to the computer to do so, you may access them all by clicking on the Mister Linky logo.

Food on Fridays Participants

Food on Fridays with Ann

We are attempting to eat more simply during Lent. So I made my first pot of lentils and rice.Lentils for Lent…Lenten lentils. Perfect.The Belgian Wonder and I already ate some with a little cheese sprinkled on top.Tomorrow night I’m going to add a few ingredients to the lentil-rice combo so that they become Hillbilly Housewife’s Taco Style Lentils & Rice recipe.Then I’m going to make Honey Baked Lentils from Doris Janzen Longacre’s More-with-Less Cookbook.Honey Baked LentilsServes 8350 degrees, 1 hrCombine in a dutch oven of saucepan:1 lb (2 1/3 C) lentils1 small bay leaf5 C water2 t saltBring to a boil. Cover tightly and reduce heat. Simmer 30 minutes. Do not drain. Discard bay leaf.Preheat oven to 350.Combine separately and add to lentils:1 t dry mustard1/4 t powdered ginger1 T soy sauce1/2 C chopped onions (I sauteed them with the bacon instead of mixing them here to shave a little off the cooking time)1 C waterCut in 1″ pieces:4 slices bacon (I cooked this with the onions in a skillet to crisp it up a bit)Stir most of the bacon into lentils and sprinkle remainder on top.Pour over all:1/3 C honeyCover tightly. Bake 1 hour. Uncover last 10 minutes to brown bacon.Options:Bacon may be partially precooked if desired (I desired). Substitute 1/2 lb browned ground beef or sausage (never did this, so I can’t vouch for other meats), or omit meat completely (I like the bacon flavor, but I’ve made it without).Delicious served with hot baked rice. Pass soy sauce. (This is true.)I’m also planning to make Lentil Soup from LaVonne Neff’s The Lenten Experiment. She published the blog to share her experience in January of 2009, when she began an experiment “to see if my husband and I could eat adequate amounts of tasty and nutritious food on a food-stamp budget. I also wanted to see what I might learn from the attempt.”Finally, I’m very much looking forward to trying a recipe submitted to Cooks.com by a Benedictine monk, called “Monastery Lentils for Lent.” It sounds so simple and so good, starting with vegetable broth and thickened with some of the cooked lentils that are removed from the pot, whirred in a food processor, and added back in for a creamy texture. Clever monks.Are you eating any differently for Lent?

It’s easy to subscribe to annkroeker.com updates via email or RSS feed.Visit NotSoFastBook.com to learn more about Ann’s new book.