Lentil Salad for Lunch

My husband loves modeling food for me. Isn't he good at it!?

So I want to eat at the local co-op every day for lunch. I want to! But, I can't. Truth be known. So I have decided to bring the co-op to my kitchen.

Lunch is not supposed to be fast. I have been convincing myself of this the past couple weeks. I love to cook. Cooking healthy meals for my family is very high, sometimes obsessively high, on my priority list, but for some reason lunch always gets the shaft.

I think it's because I am not a lunch person. I love breakfast, I think it's super important. I love dinner, sitting down as a family around a homemade meal. But for some reason lunch sucks. I never have time to do it. We are always in a hurry to eat before they take a nap, we're out running earrands, we just got home....

Lunch is a huge burden.

So I know it's hard.

But... nursing a baby I am really hungry. Often. I need to eat a good lunch. So I have been making more of an effort and it's paying off.

Today we had Lentil Salad.

I got my inspiration from here but of course I modified it to my own liking.

Here is my lentil salad that we had for lunch today. It was delicious! Another thing about this salad that you may be interested to know is that many of the ingredients are natural cleaners. If you are working on detoxifying the body apple cider vinegar, olive oil, turmeric, cayenne... all really good cleansers for the body.

Enjoy!

2 cups dried brown lentils
1 green onion, chopped
2 leaves thai basil, chopped

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

Vinaigrette: 
1/3 cup cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. dijon mustard
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon



Directions:
1. Rinse lentils well, drain. Place in a pot and cover with a 3-4 inches of water, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer. Check lentils for doneness after 15 minutes, but they should take about 20 minutes in total. 
2. While the lentils are simmering, make the dressing by placing all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake vigorously to combine. I used my ninja blender.
3. Finely dice green onion and basil. 
4. When the lentils are cooked, remove from heat, drain and place under cold running water to stop the cooking process. Once cooled slightly but still a little warm, place lentils in a large serving bowl and toss with dressing. Add green onions, basil, and sunflower seeds.