Glazed Sweet Potatoes With Lentils (and Halloumi)

I’ll be honest with you. Most of the time, my Mangia Monday recipes aren’t the actual food we eat that day. Today was an exception – although not because I planned it that way! When I got home from work intending to make a spinach and gruyere frittata, Keelin made a face, informing me she had eaten eggs for breakfast and and spinach and eggs for lunch. I had this Glazed Sweet Potatoes With Lentils recipe from Bon Appetit printed out to try at some point, and had purchased a bag of sweet potatoes on my way home, so I decided to pivot and make this instead. Given that I make my menus for the week on Sunday, this doesn’t happen often, but I was home earlier than usual so it seemed doable. 

This recipe doesn’t originally call for halloumi, but Keelin said she was craving it and I thought it would work. I like the color it added to the dish. I personally think this salad would also be a great side dish for salmon, and one of the reviewers mentioned serving it with chicken as well. We all really liked the flavor of this one, including Dan, who I wouldn’t say puts lentils on the top of his favorites list. 😉

I will offer a few tips that I learned the hard way. 

1. Make sure to buy the right lentils! You want the French Puy lentils or black lentils. (I just saw French lentils in a box at Oliver’s in the Prince’s Building today.)
2. I added 1 t Kosher salt to the lentils while cooking them. 
3. Watch your lentils so you don’t overcook them! I had to make a second batch because my first ones got too mushy. (I saved them and will eat them this week with eggs or in a salad.)
4. I used less oil and vinegar on the lentils. I think I did about 1 1/2 T olive oil and 1 T rice vinegar first and added a bit more vinegar to taste. 
5. I recommend baking the potatoes less than you would normally. Since they cook again in the pan later, they can be a little on the firmer side. This is personal preference, though. 
6. I keep the skin on and sliced the sweet potatoes into 3/4 inch slices and thought that worked well. 
7. Next time I would put the lentils on the platter first and then the sweet potatoes on top. Mine got a little bit lost doing what was recommended in the recipe, but that may have been because I cut the sweet potatoes a bit smaller than was recommended.
8. As far as I could tell, the only thing the soaking of the green onions did was make them curl. If you don’t mind straight onions, I think you can skip that step. 
9. We don’t do pistachios in our house due to a nut allergy so I substituted roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas) instead.
10. I grilled my halloumi in an ungreased  nonstick pan until soft and brown all over. (No, those are not lentil brand marks on the cheese! My pan just has small circles on the bottom. 😉)

In the end, I felt like this was a very good and relatively light and healthy Monday meal. Perhaps it was meant to be, as Chris Morocco posted it on Keelin’s birthday and it also fits in quite well with the article Dan sent me today about the Japanese 80% rule.

So I guess the moral of the story this week is make a plan, but don’t be afraid to change it if needed!