Cheesy Spaghetti-Sauce Lentil Loaf
- Ready In:
- 2hrs
- Ingredients:
- 9
- Yields:
-
1 loaf
- Serves:
- 8
ingredients
- 4 cups lentils, cooked or canned
- 2 cups quick-cooking oats
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
- 250 g aged cheddar cheese, MacLarens Imperial Aged Cheddar, crumbled or 1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups spaghetti sauce
directions
- If using dry lentils, bring to a boil in 5 cups of water. Simmer, covered, until very tender, even mushy. Drain and set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together oats, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper. Stir in lentils. Stir in crumbled cheese, beaten eggs, and spaghetti sauce. Pour into a greased 9" x 5" loaf pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about1 hour 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out free of raw egg and the loaf is fairly solid.
- A slice of lentil loaf also makes a good sandwich filling.
- When I want to make a large batch of lentil loaf to freeze for packed lunches, I prepare a double or triple batch of the recipe, and pour it into large muffin cups. I bake the mini-loaves for about 40 minutes or until solid, cool them on cookie racks, and freeze them in a ziploc bag or individual plastic containers. When I leave for work, I grab a lentil-mini loaf and a vegetable side dish and go. These mini-loaves reheat well in a microwave. They are also good served at room temperature.
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>I love life and I love good food!</p>
<p>I have been vegetarian for 11 years. I also enjoy eating and sharing yummy food with family, friends, and coworkers - almost none of whom are vegetarian. Over the years, I've come up with recipes that everyone, veggie-and-non-veggie alike, can enjoy. I aim for vegetarian recipes which taste so good, you can enjoy them even if you aren't vegetarian.</p>
<p>I aim for very nutritious, wholesome recipes, based around whole natural ingredients, especially vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. These ingredients tend to be some of the most economical foods to eat as well.</p>
<p>In the past couple of years, my husband has chosen to eliminate alcohol, onions, and garlic from his diet. Eliminating onions and garlic from my recipes was a challenge, and I do not understand the reasons for it, despite my repeated attempts. If finding vegetarian recipes my meat-loving family enjoys wasn't hard enough, imagine removing the flavour of garlic as well. Interestingly though, I think my cooking skills have expanded because of this challenge. I was challenged to find flavours to replace the onions and garlic, and I ended up learning to make my own salad dressings, fajita and taco seasonings, soup broth base, etc. I now prefer my homemade salad dressings over any I've ever bought from a store, and my grocery bill has gone down. We are also eating almost no chemical preservatives at all, since processed foods are almost eliminated when you stop eating onions and garlic.</p>
<p>My recipes are mostly adaptations from favourite recipes I found on online recipe sites, especially food.com. I learned to cook vegetarian as a young adult, living with my now-husband, and recipe foodsites were my main source of recipes. I changed the recipes slightly based on personal taste, availability of ingredients in my kitchen the day I was trying out a new recipe, and more recently, to omit onions and garlic. When a recipe is a near copy-cat of someone else's recipe, I try to give due credit.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy my recipes :-).</p>
<p>Good eating!</p>
<p>~Marianne</p>