French lentils make me happy

They're small, speckled and wonderful. 

This morning, my sister came over and the wee tot decided that Auntie was the greatest in the world.  I took the opportunity to make a lentil salad for my lunches this week and some gingery  marinated chickpeas for later in the week.

This lentil salad recipe was given to me by a friend's father, an old hippy who seriously sounds exactly like Mitch Cohen (Eugene Levy) in A Mighty Wind.

So.  Take some lentils (for a lot of salad, I do one cup dried).  Put them in a pot with a lot of water.  Boil for 20 minutes, or until they're tender.

Drain and rinse.

Put lentils in a bowl with some olive oil and vinegar (Mitch Cohen told me to use red wine vinegar. Later, he told his daughter to use balsamic vinegar.  We're pretty sure he told a third party to use lemon juice.  This time around, I used rice vinegar because that's what I had on hand).  I'm a vinegar fiend so I used a lot.  If you're not, don't.

If you have time, let that cool and marinate for a while.  If you're in a hurry, chop up the scallions right away (use a good handful) and toss into the salad (do this later if you're marinating it).

At this point you can add salt and pepper and be done.

OR
You can add in some:
parsley
tomatoes
walnuts
cucumber
zucchini
red pepper
whatever other vegetable you want.

So this makes a good lunch salad.  Leftovers can be put into a pita and immediately eaten.  I know from experience that you don't want to put the lentils in the pita and then wait around until lunch 'cause that's how you end up with a soggy sandwich.