Sunny Side Up Nutrition

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15 Minute Lentil Ragout

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When was the last time you packed lunch for your kids? For me, the date was March 15, 2020. Then, last week, when my 13 year old started back to school in-person/hybrid, I went back to packing lunch. I’ve grown used to making lunch at lunch time, or simply setting out items for my kids (ages 13 and 17) to reheat or leaving them to scrounge around the kitchen to put together lunch on their own. It’s going to take awhile to get used to post-pandemic schedules. On my daughter’s second day back to school, I realized a few minutes before she needed to leave that I’d forgotten to pack her lunch! Because I happened to have a batch of my 15 Minute Lentil Ragout and rice on hand, I was able to reheat it and fill a thermos in just a few minutes!

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for simple, new lunch ideas. I thought I’d share the recipe with you, since one of my go-to lunch items is lentils and rice and having a batch on hand saved me last week.

This quick and easy Lentil Ragout has a hint of summery tarragon and a splash of Champagne vinegar to add brightness to the dish. It tastes great over rice or farro. Sometimes, I top it with grated cheese or toasted pecans or a poached egg. The ragout also makes a great side dish for my Mustard Roasted Salmon.

You can see here just how easy it is to make my 15 Minute Lentil Ragout! Don’t want to chop the onion, celery, carrot and garlic? You can buy them pre-chopped at most grocery stores.

Do you feel stressed about packing lunches? Try our simple lunch packing formula:

Simple lunch packing formula

Would you like more tips to de-stress your lunch packing routine? You can purchase our E-book: Your Ultimate Stress-Free Guide to Packing Lunches here.

If you love lentils, you’ll love my Lentil Salad recipe that also uses the Trader Joe’s steamed lentils.

What’s your favorite lentil recipe? 

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15-Minute Lentil Ragout

This tarragon and Champagne vinegar infused lentil ragout takes only 15 minutes to make. It tastes great paired with rice or farro and it makes a great Thermos lunch.

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 celery stick, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 small onion, diced

1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped

1 teaspoon Red Diamond Kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 container of Trader Joe’s steamed lentils

1 1/2 cups water or vegetable or chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon (or a splash) of Champagne vinegar

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

  • Peel and dice the carrots, onion and garlic. Dice the celery.
  • Add olive oil to a medium sauce pan. Add the chopped veggies and turn the heat on to medium.
  • Add 1 teaspoon Red Diamond Kosher salt and 1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon.
  • Stir the ingredients together and sauté for 5-10 minutes or until the veggies begin to soften just a bit.
  • Add the package of Trader Joe’s steamed lentils to the pan. Break them apart with a spoon. 
  • Add freshly ground pepper.
  • Add 1 1/2 cups water, turn the heat up to medium high and bring to a low boil. Cook for 5 minutes. 
  • Add 1/2 teaspoon of Champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar). 
  • Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Notes

Serve over cooked rice or farro. The lentils are also great topped with grated cheese or your favorite toasted nuts or a poached egg. 

Wondering What To Cook With All That Zucchini? Zucchini Fritters

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Zucchini Fritters

There seems to be an endless supply of zucchini this time of year. I’ve been serving zucchini in some form or another for years. We even grew it one summer. Yet, my children have never touched zucchini, at least that I can remember, and they’re teenagers: 13 and 16. Kids need to see a food upwards of 20 times before they’ll try it. We’re definitely well beyond that with zucchini! Yes, it’s helpful to offer a food in different forms and I definitely have done that, too. I’ve often felt like throwing in the towel and just assuming they don’t like this vegetable and never will. There have been times over the years that I’ve felt SO frustrated that they haven’t even taken the tiniest taste! It’s hard to resist the urge to coax a child to try different foods and I’ve had years of practice. I feel your pain! 

Pandemic Silver Lining

One of the positive things to come out of the pandemic is that I’ve had much more time to plan meals and cook. The lack of a commute to work, coupled with not ferrying my kids all over to their activities, has left me with the elusive gift of some extra time.

I felt like I’d been stuck in a rut repeating a couple of handfuls of meals and not much new. But with this gift of time, that’s changed! I’m loving cooking so many new recipes, including some new zucchini recipes!

Recently, I’ve made roasted zucchini; fettuccine tossed with corn, diced zucchini, basil and lemon and zucchini fritters. Offering a food in different forms, gives everyone different opportunities to try foods. @smittenkitchen had a zucchini recipe in her feed recently, so I decided I’d give it a try. I’ve never made (or eaten) zucchini fritters. GUESS WHAT???? One of my children ate the fritters and even LIKED them! 

Zucchini Fritters

Zucchini fritters are so simple to make and they don’t take long to cook, which makes them perfect for a hot evening. They also reheat well if there are any leftovers. 

  • grated zucchini
    grate zucchini
  • drain zucchini
    sprinkle with salt and let sit in a strainer over a bowl for 20-30 minutes
  • wring out shredded zucchini

I added feta cheese and some herbs. After I made them the first time, my 16 year old suggested I coat them with bread crumbs, so they’d be nice and crispy. Such a great idea! She was right! I like them both ways with just a slight preference for the fritters coated in bread crumbs.

breaded zucchini fritters

Serve the fritters with sour cream or tzatziki. You could also make the sauce from the original Smitten Kitchen recipe if you prefer. You can serve these as a side or a main dish. I served them as a side with pesto pasta and a salad. I just put them on a plate and placed it on the table with a serving utensil so everyone could help themselves. This way there was NO PRESSURE for anyone to try them. I knew everyone could fill up on other parts of the meal. If there’s no pressure to try a new food, kids may be more likely to try it. 

Zucchini fritters

Just Keep Offering!

The moral of the story here is to KEEP OFFERING! If you read the opening paragraph (no worries if you didn’t! Most of the time I skim blog posts.), you’ll remember my kids are TEENAGERS who had never eaten zucchini. One of them has now eaten zucchini at least 6 times in the weeks since first trying a zucchini fritter! DON’T GIVE UP!

What’s a food you’ve offered for years without anyone trying it?

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Zucchini Fritters

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Simply Recipes.

Makes about 10 fritters

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport

Ingredients

1 lb (2 medium) zucchini

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/2 teaspoon table salt) plus more to taste

1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped

½ teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped

¾ cup crumbled feta cheese

1 egg

½ cup all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

Freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for cooking the fritters

*Optional: ¾ cup panko bread crumbs for coating the fritters before cooking

Instructions

  • Wash the zucchini and trim off the ends. Grate each zucchini on the large holes of a box grater. 
  • (Or you can use the grater blade on a food processor). Place the grated zucchini in a mesh colander set over a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt and mix with your hands to distribute the salt. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. (The salt will draw the water out of the zucchini).
  • While the zucchini rests, chop the basil and oregano and mix together with the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl.
  • Once 20 minutes has passed, wring out the zucchini by squeezing handfuls of it at a time. (This is a fun activity for kids if you have them). You’ll get a lot of water out! Give each handful of zucchini a few really good squeezes.
  • Taste the zucchini to see if it needs more salt and add more if needed. 
  • Add the wrung out zucchini to the flour and herb mixture. Add the egg and crumbled feta along with a few turns of freshly ground pepper and mix gently until combined.
  • Add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a frying pan (I used a cast iron pan) over medium high heat. While the pan is heating, form the mixture into small cakes and set aside on a plate. (You can also just drop about a ¼ cup at a time into the heated frying pan if you don’t want to form them into cakes). 
  • Cook on each side until golden brown (3-5 minutes each side). Remove the fritters from the pan and place them on a paper towel lined plate for a few minutes. If you’d like to keep them warm while you finish cooking all the batter, place them on a ¼ sheet pan in a 250F oven. 

Notes

*If you’d like the fritters to be extra crispy, you can coat them with panko bread crumbs just before frying.