Cooking is a Learning Process

It's Sunday afternoon - a beautiful one following an otherwise rainy weekend - and I thought I'd finally get around to making the Lentils with Caramelized Leeks and Sausage I'd been planning for a while. I was watching Food Network this morning and I got the itch to cook. I'd make it and then just put it away for the week and save some time. I finally found the lentils and rice I needed yesterday so I was set to go.

I browned up the sausage, sliced the leeks, and got them cooking in the sausage fat. The smell was incredible. I put the lentils in a big pot with chicken stock, and let them cook for the 15 minutes the recipe told me to do. But here's where things started to go awry. The recipe said to use a 3/4 cup of long grain rice - it didn't specify any more than that. It instructed me to cook the lentils for 15 minutes on their own, then add the rice to the pot and cook 15-20 minutes more. That seemed odd to me though, because I always thought that standard rice took much longer than that and needed more water. After 15 minutes of simmering, the lentils had soaked up most of it. But I followed the instructions anyway, keeping my eye on my leeks that were getting more delicious by the moment. After 15 more minutes, there was almost no water left and it was very clear that the rice wasn't going to cook. The lentils however, were done and getting mushy. This wasn't going well.

Caramelizing leeks rocks.

Lentils boiling away.

Now I have never cooked lentils so I might have messed up. But I am inclined to say that this recipe either wasn't specific enough (perhaps I got the wrong kind of rice?) or it just was wrong. I had an extra pack of lentils because I wasn't sure how much I needed, so I decided to fully scrap the pot of lentils and rice, and re-make only the lentils. It was frustrating but it was better to cut my losses, and luckily, these weren't ingredients that cost much. So, I put another cup of lentils in the pot with half water and half stock, all I had left, and let them cook. By now my leeks and sausage were ice cold. I let the lentils go but apparently too long - by the end they were mushy and sticking to the bottom of the pot. Grrr. I had to get something working so I scraped out as much of the lentils as I could and folded in the leeks and sausage. It definitely needed a good dose of salt and pepper. It was edible, and probably will be better tomorrow after the flavors mix a bit more. Overall, though, it was boring and kind of looked like baby food. I wasn't impressed. It was just a bit annoying to follow a recipe and not have it work. It reminded me that cooking is a learning process for every level of cook, and sometimes things just don't work.

The finished product...looking not so appetizing. Taste's ok.