Quick Vegan Lentil TVP bolognese

I am a fan of both lentils and TVP to sub for ground beef. But either can get boring. Lentils have a nice texture, but... I don't know, they just aren't quite right. And TVP doesn't have quite enough bite to it for me. Luckily Mr. More Calories brought me some TVP from home and it's probably enough to last me comfortably for the next two months, hooray!

Tonight I thought about blending the two. I've been working harder to prepare things ahead here because there are so few convenience foods that I want to eat. Yes, there is plenty of inexpensive street food, but a lot of it is so salty and meat-based and it's just not what I want to be eating. I don't even like to eat at restaurants often at home. I keep frozen lentils on hand here because they take a while to cook, and it's not that much longer to cook 3 cups than it is to cook the one half I might possibly eat. If you drain them well before freezing, they are really easy to break up without thawing, too.

btw, yes, the name bolognese means it's got meat in Italian, but it's meat-substitute, right? Good enough for me.

Quick Lentil TVP Bolognese
Serves: 1

1/4 cup cooked lentils
2 T TVP
3 T tomato paste
1/4 t salt (or to taste)
1/2 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1/8 t paprika
dash cayenne
2/3 c water

Put everything into a sauce pan and heat over medium until hot.

I ate this with about a cup and a half of spiral pasta. I don't know the proper names for it, but it held the lentils and TVP really well!


Nutrition info: Cal - 250   Fat - 1g    Protein - 21g    Carbs - 42g

New recipe try - but fail

I went to start lunch at 11:40.

Kinda later than I meant, but still before I was actually hungry.

Put the pot on with water for lentils (b/c I had looked up a decent soup recipe) and then got out the lentils to sort them.

Sorting them is important always, according to my mom, but I have definitely found rocks, etc in them here.

I noticed some sort of white speckling on them, but honestly didn't think much. Picked out two rocks.

Until I saw a dead bug. The kind I've seen on my bottom shelf and put bags, etc around the sugar, flour and cookies to combat.

But it wasn't in the sugar/flour/cookies, maybe because they were protected. It was dead. In the lentils.

Didn't think much, continued, and saw second Mr. Dead Bug. Probably Ms, actually.

Then I looked more closely at the speckles because they certainly weren't there before.

And at the bag of lentils, about 2/3 full. And could see from the outside many other nasty, annoying dead bugs. And lots of holey lentils.

So apparently there is some kind of little weevil thing that likes lentils and other 'pulses.' Jerks.

Googled it, apparently those speckles are eggs and the holes may have more. Or, better yet, larvae.

Some people say cook it and they'll be dead, you can skim them off.

Or freeze 48 hours to kill them, then sort, cook and eat as usual.

Lentils into trash. Next bag will be stored in freezer, as this is apparently a decent option and it's not like you can buy a lot of frozen foods here anyway.

Ate tuna melt, particularly pleased that I had though to pick up tuna on the way home last night.

And more than a bit grossed out by the lentil guys.

What would you have done?