Recipes aren't for following

Saw this recipe in my latest issue of _Bon Appetit_ for curried red lentil, kohlrabi and couscous salad. Looked interesting BUT...
DH doesn't like curried lentils so much, and especialy not as a salad. He likes lentils, just not curried. Also, we need to have some extra protein due to diabetes II in the family. Finally, I felt like pulling out my crockpot today.

So....I made two dishes today: Salt Pork with lentils and kohlrabi, and eggplant caponata.

Chopped 3 onions (2 white 1 red) and sauteed them in olive oil until soft
Tossed half into a crockpot with a chunk of salt pork from the freezer and some chicken broth to cover. Turned crockpot on high. Reserved the rest of the cooked onion for caponata.

Chopped 3 bell peppers (2 orange, 1 red), 2 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and 3 kohlrabi.

I still say Kohlrabi looks like an alien. But it tastes somewehre between a potato and a radish. Interesting. So, I took the leaves and rinsed them, and chiffonaded them and added them to the crockpot. Then I chopped the kohlrabi bulbs. Even though they were small, they had some touch parts, so I will get bigger ones next time. I had tried doing the "boil 30 seconds then shock in ice water" trick to get the skins off but that didn't help. So I just took a paring knife to them.

Dropped about half of the chopped veggies into the crockpot. Added the lentils (about a cup of red lentils) and poured in broth to cover.

What to use for spices?

I decided to go with mustard and paprika(to go with the salt pork); black peppercorns and garlic powder, of course; some cumin seed to add some highlight; and then saw the black coriander. So I added one of those, and ground the works up in the grinder. Added half (about a tsp) to start along with about a tsp of salt.

A couple hours in, I added another tsp or so of spices, and some hot water cuz it was looking a bit dry.

All in all, it cooked about 6 hours, about 2 on high, 3 on low, then another hour on high to finish it off and make sure everything was soft. When it was time to eat, I took out the pork and pulled it into chunks to add to the plates, (removing the fat and bone).

I took a cup plus of the cooking liquid in a small saucepan, brought it to a boil, and added a cup of couscous. After setting 5 minutes, I fluffed it with a fork.

For presentation, I put down a swipe of good dijon mustard on the plate, piled the pork and a half cup of couscous on one side, then filled the rest of the plate with mixed salad greens topped with a cup of the lentil, kohlrabi mix.

Yummy and filling. We had it with a white French burgundy. It didn't need anything else. It was SOOOOO good. Yum! And all because I saw a recipe for curried lentils and couscous... ;-)

Oh - and the caponata got prepped in the meantime so it's ready for tomorrow's dinner. But that's another post...