Dal

Despite the never-ending supply of soda, my mother ensured we ate a healthy diet. "Sugar cereals," like Trix, Fruity Pebbles, Smacks, were forbidden. You would never find a loaf of white bread in our house. We ate oatmeal for breakfast, in cookies, and added to turkey burgers. My mother made omelets with wheat germ, taboleh, cous cous, and lentils. My father made an amazing pea soup and killer pumpkin pie. One of my favorite memories of having my sister and mother together when I was young involved the two of them tinkering around in the kitchen and making banana and zucchini bread.

I enjoyed little rebellions when I was away from our home.  At Ryan and J.J.'s house nextdoor I enjoyed peanut butter and Fluff sandwiches. Two doors up, Sarah and Shauna's mom made Kool-Aid. Lindsay and I ordered pizza to my house one day in the eighth grade- something I had never, ever done. We gorged on it and then laughed at each other's root beer-induced burps. In high school I would make sandwiches for lunch off of the salad and sandwich bar in the cafeteria with white bread, drank a Coke almost every morning of my Senior year, and enjoyed doughnuts almost every Friday. My freshman year of college, my roommate and I enjoyed late-night trips to the campus convenience store to pick up boxes of Count Chocula and beef jerkey. One thing remained the same: I still loved my mother's middle-Eastern inspired foods.

When my sister moved to the DR (the first time), she had a part-time maid who cooked for her once or twice a week.  Despite having no idea what they were, she made amazing lentils. Each time I tried to make them, the lentils still had hard centers.  My friend Deb makes an amazing lentil soup with smoked turkey in it. My attempt had not-so-good, hard results.  This summer my sister left bags of different types of lentils and ingredients for dal for me to experiment with.  I failed one bean-making attempt since them.  (The dal was just flavorless and slightly hard.)  I decided to try again, using my slowcooker.  I found a recipe that matched one of the bag of dal I had opened, and went to town.  They actually turned out! Here is what I did:

1. I stuck the beans in a pot of water and brought them to a boil. After skimming them, I let them sit there over night.
2. I put the dal and ingredients in the slowcooker according to this recipe.
3. After cooking the dal on high for four hours, the dal still had a lot of liquid in it. So, I turned it down to warm and left it over night.