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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—it doesn’t have to be a recipe. If you just want to post photos of your lettuce seed packets, that’ll do just fine.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

A few weeks ago I wrote about Lenten Lentils for Food on Fridays. My friend Linda and I were talking about the honey-baked lentils recipe I posted that day from the More-with-Less cookbook. I made a batch recently and devoured them. But she couldn’t say enough about the More-with-Less Lentil-Barley Stew recipe. Her enthusiastic recommendation convinced me to try it.As I was cooking the lentils with the sauteed celery and onion, it wasn’t looking super appetizing.But I still had things to add, like the barley, tomatoes and spices (picture doesn’t include everything).It started looking better as the barley began to cook.I let it simmer for quite some time. As you can see from the recipe, it cooks for 45-60 minutes. I actually ran some errands. When I came back home to check on the lentils…I dipped into a pot of thick, nourishing stew.When it was in the soup-stage, I was not overly impressed.In the stew-stage, however, I’m lovin’ it. Unfortunately, my kids aren’t lovin’ it. They don’t share our love of lentils at all.One of my daughters still gags on mashed potatoes and refuses to choke down more than one single pea. On the rare occasions we insist she ingest one single pea or one spoonful of mashed potatoes, she washes it down (after a weepy 20-minute delay) with an eight-ounce glass of milk. I won’t tell you how old she is; suffice it to say she’s definitely old enough to eat one pea or tablespoonful of mashed potatoes without a fuss. Anyway, after many years of these struggles, I didn’t even bother asking her to swallow a lentil. While the Belgian Wonder and I each enjoyed a generous serving of Lentil-Barley Stew (and packed some for tomorrow’s lunches), the kids defaulted to Leila’s Mac-n-Cheese. Yes, I caved. But at least it was effortless to throw together their alternative, thanks to Leila’s mac-n-cheese virtual mentoring.Enjoy the lentils.And if you don’t enjoy the lentils, enjoy the mac-n-cheese.

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