If you’ve been following my blog for a while then you know that I’m very fond of lentils. I’ve used them in lentil cakes, salad,  soup and one of my favourite lunch dishes. Frozen lentil cooking stock is a staple in my pantry to use in all kinds of soups.

So, it’ll be no surprise that I was happy to hear that May is Love Your Lentils Month in Canada. Cool! I was even more excited to learn that Canadian Lentils has partnered with Chef Michael Smith to sponsor a lentil cooking contest, open to both home cooks and food bloggers. The public gets a chance to vote for their favourite recipes in both categories, and everyone has a chance at winning. The grand prize is a trip for two to a culinary adventure in Saskatoon with Michael Smith, and some other goodies (see details here). There will be three grand prize winners: a home cook, a blogger and a randomly drawn contest voter. You just need to provide your contact information (optional) when you vote if you’d like to be part of the draw.
And yes, I am asking you to consider voting for my recipe in the blogger category.

For my contest submission I wanted to try something new, so I developed a recipe for Beluga and Red Lentil Crostini. I hadn’t used lentils in an appetizer before, and this was my first time cooking beluga lentils. They are one of the smallest lentils and their appearance  is reminiscent of beluga caviar (not that I’ve ever eaten it). The beluga lentils certainly added an element of sophistication to the recipe, and contrast beautifully with the colourful vegetables. The effect is enhanced by mincing the vegetables so the pieces are not much bigger than the lentils. It only takes a little more time, and is worth the effort. The red lentils cooked down to form a loose paste that I used to hold the beluga lentils and minced vegetables together on top of the toasted bread slices.

The Culinary Enthusiast and I motored our way though seven of these this afternoon. We’d missed lunch, and these hearty and satisfying crostini were just the ticket.

If you like this recipe, I’d appreciate it if you would visit the Love Your Lentils contest website and vote for me, here. If you’re head over heels for this recipe, you can vote every day up to and including May 31! Thank you for any and all votes you send my way!

DISCLOSURE: I was not required to write a blog post about my recipe submission to the Love Your Lentils contest. I’ve done so to tell my readers about the contest and ask them to consider voting for my recipe, as well as inform them about the opportunity to be eligible for the prize draw themselves.

Beluga and Red Lentil Crostini

I’ll be posting the recipe on the blog post in the near future. In the meantime, you can see it on the Love Your Lentils site, here.