Vegan lentil loaf
Hi friends 🙂 How are you? Hope you’re sleeping away peacefully when this blog post goes up.
I’m up before the birds (and haaaate the morning!) to go on a work field trip to one of the health resorts in town. It’s purely work-related, but I’m sure we’ll be able to sneak in some fun stuff 😉
I have an exciting dinner to share with ya:
Lentil loaf!
Let me start off by saying that this loaf didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to. It was still DELICIOUS, but didn’t quite stick together. I’ve never had a great relationship with “loaves (loafs?)” of any kind, but was borderline impressed with the results.
I used this new Giada loaf pan from Target.
To make it fully authentic, I wore a low-cut shirt, smiled with all of my teeth and said things like “ri-CO-tta”, “mozarella” and “marscapon-ay” 😉
These TJs lentils also made the recipe SO much easier.
Lentil Loaf
Vegan and gluten-free (Check the BBQ sauce to be sure)
Serves 4
-16 oz cooked lentils
-1 C quinoa, cooked (will make about 2 cups)
-1/2 C baby carrots
-1 shallot
-BBQ sauce of choice (I used the Sunflower Market brand)
-sage, garlic, oregano, sea salt, pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 350* and coat a loaf pan with nonstick spray or the Misto.
2. In a food processor, chop 1/2 C carrots and 1 shallot. Add the chopped veggies to a large bowl.
3. To this bowl, add the cooked quinoa, 1 pack of lentils (2 C), 1/2 C BBQ sauce, 1/2 t sage, 1/2 t oregano, 1/2 t garlic powder, sea salt and pepper.
4. Add the ingredients to the loaf pan and press down.
Bake for 45 minutes, top with more BBQ sauce and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
5. Let it cool completely, and then set in the fridge before warming up- it will stick a little better.
*It would also be excellent scrambled in some eggs, or on top of of a massaged kale salad. Mmmmm 😀
So I had a confession to make:
since I’ve been in Tucson, I’ve been drinking a boatload of bottled water.
The townhouse roomies and I are renting doesn’t have a water filter in the fridge like I’m used to, and Tucson tap water is a little sketch to say the least. I’ve been filling up water bottles at my mom’s house and buying lots and lots of bottles from Trader Joe’s. Even though all the bottles are recycled, I felt guilty about it and picked up this bad Johnny:
Do they really work?
Please say yes.
Haha.
Well I’m off to carpe diem and all that jazz 😀 See ya this afternoon with a re-cap from the resort.
xoxo
Gina
Something to think:
A Creed to Live By
Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over … until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to admit you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give love. The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly, and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
Don’t dismiss dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope. To be without hope is to be without purpose.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only wher you’ve been but also where you’re going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savoured each step of the way.
109 Comments
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I’m up before the birds as well – and it’s allll because of work 🙂 That dinner looks ahhhmazing – thanks for putting up the recipe 🙂 Enjoy your day!
brita filters are actually great! the filter itself is activated carbon which is like a wonder-product because it really does pull out SO MANY THINGS from your water! 🙂
So glad you’re up to keep me company in my first class! We have a Brita in our dorm and it works wonders. Only thing is I wish it was bigger cause it takes so long to fill up and it always seems to be gone so quickly ! Maybe I just drink a lot of water.
You are being kind when you say the water in Tucson is “a little sketch”…lol!! My mom never let us drink out of the tap…EVER….I’m the same way with my daughter..guess some habits are hard to break 🙂
I love my Brita filter – I know you’ll love your’s too!
T.
I hope they work because I use one, too!! Enjoy your field trip… it sounds fun! 🙂
I need to read the Creed each day! I have a Brita installed under my sink; don’t know if it works. Love Giada and her Target goods.
Lol…great Giada impression, low cut shirt & all!!
i’m not sure if britta really works!! I do have a cool pink one and love it! I love giada too! 🙂
your loaf looks good 😉 even if it didn’t stick together well!!
p.s. did you like the loaf pan? I have her stainless steel pots and love em!
Brita filters are the best! Better than fridge filters, IMO.
Your dinner looks great!! I have a ton of lentils in my cupboard that I need to find a use for so I think that might just be how I get rid of them. Have a fabulous day Gina! 🙂
Brita filters work as long as the water is really cold and you don’t have super sensitive taste buds!
Hope you enjoy your day.
My husband has the Brita pitcher for his office, and my son uses it in his dorm. They love it and it makes the water taste great. The only complaint, like Charlotte mentioned, it that it takes a while to fill.
Great picture of Giada’s toothy grin. We love her. We used to refer to her show as “Cooking With Cleavage!” LOL
I have that Brita filter pitcher and love it! Each filtration cartridge lasts a loooong time. I use that water to boil tea or make rice with too and it really helps.
I loooove lentil loaf! If you try blending up about half or a little more of the lentils, it sticks MUCH better.
Wow that lentil loaf sounds really good! Oh and I love the Giada picture, put a smile on my face this morning haha 😛
Tip for the lentil loaf to stick together: mash at least 75% of the lentils in the food processor! It also helps to add a flax egg (2 TB ground flax seed, 1/8cup water, mixed to gel). Angela on Oh she glows sweated over that recipe…. 😉
I think I saw a recipe for lentil loaf on “oh she glows” and she had the same problem UNTIL she pureed/processed some of the cooked lentils (maybe 1/2?) before putting the loaf together. It stuck together beautifully. 🙂
i remember seeing that she had probs too but couldn’t remember for the life of me what she ended up doing to perfect it. guess i’ll have to make a do-over!!
The Brita filters work great! As a college student who lives in a third floor apartment, I definitely got tired of lugging bottled water up the stairs each week! The filter was life-changing!
I use a Brita pitcher, and I think they help a lot!! Los Angeles water is MORE than a little sketch… it’s gross!!! I wouldn’t even give that stuff to my dog, so she gets Brita water, too! 😉
That lentil loaf looks delish! Love Trader Joe’s for having pre-cooked lentils… what a time saver!
Have fun on your trip! I laughed out loud at the Giada thing; so true.
I”m up very early also…go to get to work!
got
That recipe looks fantastic! Cant wait to try it. Totally love that movie by the way!
Brita filters are awesome! I swear by them! I have the green one and love it!
I’ve used a Brita filter before and I think they work great! Makes the tap water taste so much better. Just remember to change the filter every couple of months.
I love the Giada picture! She enunciates EVERYTHING!
As long as you change the filter they usually work pretty well. The lentil loaf looks great! If you processed half of the lentils the loaf would probably stick together a bit better.
Gina! When my husband and I lived in Tucson we bought the Brita pitcher and it works tremendously. That was 8 years ago and we are still using it to this day. When we first moved there I made the mistake of drinking the tap water. Yeah. Not pretty.
Love that creed! And despite how goofy and over-the-top Giada can be I unabashedly adore her. 🙂
Oh and Brita pitchers work wonderfully!!! I accidentally drank the water in San Antonio TX before I knew better. Learned my lesson…
Brita’s are awesome. Just make sure when it gets low to refill right away or you’ll end having to wait while it filters through next time you need water!
Yes it works! Have it too, I found a pink one 😀
You can also buy the one you put on the faucet. Thing is filters are super expensive.
Love love love lentil loaf and haven’t made it in a long long time… guess what I’m making tonight 😉
I love our Britta! We got a huge pack of filters at Costco and they last a long time…and my husband and I drink at least 2-3 liters each per day. Economical and environmentally friendly 🙂
hehehe I like the title of this post 🙂 Also, it might hold together better next time if you throw in some bread crumbs or a chia/flax egg!
that’s a great idea! i thought about throwing an egg in, but really wanted to save it for breakfast this morning 🙂
Wow – you are up early. Love the idea of this lentil loaf!
Loaf looks so good! I, on the other hand, am a loaf ho! haha One of my favorite meals is a gluten-free organic turkey meatloaf. Reminds me of childhood for some reason.
Have a great day,
Laur
I’ve been wanting to incorporate more lentils into my diet and now that I know TJs makes ’em up all easy, I’m going to buy them!
That meatloaf looks amazing!
Have that pitcher and LOVE it. It made a huge difference in the nasty water that I have at the rural-ish house I moved to a couple years ago.
I love my Brita! I’m jealous that they come in all these pretty colors now, when I bought mine they only came in white.
I don’t really like Giada — I find her kind of annoying, but I secretly want all of her Target products!
i want to try that lentil loaf!
i can’t stand drinking tap water, it has a nasty taste to me anywhere i go. We buy a 5 gallon jug of water once a week, that is reverse osmosis, only $3 to fill. lasts us the week, and doesn’t use a bunch of little bottles. Not sure if this is something you could look into either?
I read in one of my nutrition books that the carbon from the brita filters can get moldy. so i decided to stay away.
Yes they work! lol. You just have to make sure to change the filter when it says, I think every 2 months or something. 🙂 I love the title of this post btw haha.
Yum- lentil loaf! To make things a little stickier you could add a flax egg, vegenaise, crushed gluten free crackers, or all of the above. I sometimes do the all of the above thing when I make my hubby mooseloaf.
Have fun at the resort!
AHAHA. Two things. I love this post bc the “creed’ couldn’t have been read at a more perfect time…and two…the title made me Crack up! I love that line!
I have a pink Brita and I love it! I don’t mind filling it up, it’s only my boyfriend and i that use it, anyway. (He was sooo thrilled when I picked out the pink one… it was after breast cancer awareness month and so it was on sale!)
I definitely need to make a lentil loaf one of these days. For some reason I have this “thing” about lentils. I think it comes from my grandma making lentil stew (ack…) for dinner and my mom making me eat the whole bowl. I’m pretty sure my tastes have advanced since then.
I have one and I love it! The brita rocks!!! Glad you got one!! Have fun today!!! xoxo <3
YES! I am here to tell you that I AM IN LOVE WITH MY BRITA PITCHER! My fiance and I have had one at every apartment we’ve ever lived in, either separately or together. They work — even if you aren’t diligent about changing your filter every 3 months or whatever it calls for. The carbon in the filters still take out impurities, in my personal experience. 🙂 Enjoy!
Yes I would definitely say the Brita filter works for sure, I can totally tell the difference. You have to remember to change the filter though! (mine lasts about 2 months).