Lentils with Butternut, Pearl Onions and lots of Lime

This time of year things get busy.  Really busy.  Hence, I'm all over a quick meal based on what I have on hand and with ingredients that allow me moving fast.

Enter Melissa's Produce and the San Diego Food Blogger's Fall Challenge.  With Melissa's bringing ingredients right to my doorstep, some of my favorite San Diego Food Bloggers and I are putting together recipes "Chopped" style based on what's in our Melissa's Produce Box.

Including butternut squash, pearl onions, shallots, dried cranberries, pine nuts, baby Dutch yellow potatoes, steamed potatoes, and packages of steamed (ready to eat!) fava beans, black eyed peas and garbanzo beans, our directions to use three or four of the ingredients had me immediately eying the squash and pearl onions.  The rest would follow.

My experience with pearl onions dates back more years than I care to share.  As a little girl I remember adults at parties garnishing cocktails (I think they were martinis) with pearl onions, and I recall vividly thinking those little globes would never be a part of my life.

My next experience came in the form of a winter stew, filled with way too many pearl onions that had been cooked for far too long.  Again... I made the vow to avoid those pearls.

However, being an onion lover, my interest piqued with the bag of perfectly formed little onions in my Melissa's Box.  Could I incorporate them and be pleased with the dish??  In a word... Yes!

Short on time and patience after a day of driving (I had spent over 3 hours behind the wheel and never left an 8 mile radius), I've never been so thankful that someone had done the shopping for me.

Grabbing the squash, I quickly had it peeled and seeded, then chopped into cubes, and the pearl onions also peeled quickly after a few minutes in boiling water.

Drizzling them both with a splash of oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, I tossed the pan into the oven and grabbed a package of prepared lentils (Love this Melissa product... they just weren't in our box), a box of broth and Melissa's steamed and peeled garbanzos.

Placing the lentils, broth and garbanzos into a pot I added a small scoop of red curry paste and stirred until heated through.  Some 20 minutes later the vegetables were roasted to perfection and I simply added them to the lentils.  Upon tasting though, the flavor was a bit flat.  A dash of salt helped, but what really had this dish dancing was a squeeze of lime.  Actually, a few squeezes of lime and a handful of chopped cilantro.

I toyed with the idea of garnishing with the pine nuts, and I know they would have been fabulous here, but the freshly roasted butternut squash seeds were simply irresistible.

Bright and flavorful in about 30 minutes, this dish pleased the whole family and brought a bowl of healthy ingredients to the table.

My thanks to Melissa's for providing me with the challenge box, I think this one ranks up there as my favorite to date.  How can you go wrong with roasted butternut?  And those pearl onions...???  They won't be a stranger in our house any more.  Melissa's made a stressful day just that much easier.  Thank you!

Grilled Mahi Mahi with Lentils

Learning to fly isn't easy, but I think I'd have to say landing is even harder.

Stepping outside yesterday morning, my eye immediately went to something floating in our pool.  Stepping closer, a baby bird floated, wings outspread, feet dangling with his beak barely above water.  No bigger than a mouse, I scooped him into my hands and nestled him in a soft towel.  And then I held him.

Mama??

With the towel hopefully soaking up some of the water and the warmth of my hands pushing away his chill, his eyes closed and we sat.  Shortly his body began to tremble, but amazingly his feathers slowly began to puff up and dry.

After some 20 minutes or so, he opened one eye and peered into my staring face, and slowly the trembling subsided.  Feathers drying, he began to look around and uttered a small "cheep".  Closing his one eye he puffed his feathers again and huddled deeper into the towel.  Apparently content.

Then suddenly, his head popped up and an amazingly loud "Cheep!!  Cheep!!  Cheep!" came from his tiny body as a larger version of himself fluttered close by in a tree answering with "cheeps" of her own.  Setting the little baby under the tree his Mama darted close by and I left them alone.  An hour later he was gone, hopefully flying a better course than his first one.

My first (and last!) flight attempt... circa 1992

As for his landing, I totally get it.  You see, some 20 years ago my fighter pilot husband attempted to teach me to fly.  Amazingly caring and patient, he guided me through the basics I had learnt in flight school and we embarked on an adventure north to my parent's house.

Taking off wasn't too difficult, though his guiding hands probably had something to do with that.  And turning right wasn't too difficult either, however left-hand banks somehow caused the wing to dip and a loss in altitude.  Luckily, my husband handled anything on the left.

Then came time to land.  Making right-handed turns into our approach I actually had us decently set up for final.  Following a glide slope that seemed fine to me, we made our way towards Grass Valley with a runway set up on a bluff.   Patting myself on the back I settled in and prepared for the rest of our descent as my husband calmly asked, "Does it bother you that you can no longer see the runway?".

"Nope!" I responded, "Should it?", to which he calmly stated, "My airplane."  And he skillfully took us back up to where we had the runway in sight, something I've learned is fairly important when not preferring to land into the side of a bluff.  ;)

So my little birdie friend and I have something in common.  Flying, and landing, are not some of the easy things in life.

This Grilled Mahi Mahi dish though, is fabulously easy and anyone, experienced or not, will be able to maneuver their way to a fantastic meal with a few simple steps.

Enter Trader Joe's, my all time favorite store.  Always friendly and fun, TJ's also provides quality ingredients that many times work together like magic.

Mixing together Trader Joe's Steamed Lentils, Fresh Bruschetta Sauce and a handful of Mediterranean Feta, these simple ingredients blend into something other worldly, something beyond fantastic and totally gush-worthy.  Adding a piece of grilled mahi to mix serves to make the dish a complete meal and will have your guests asking for your secret recipe.  You can just tell them, it's all in the landing...