4.21.17 Green Lentil, Arugula, and Smoked Trout Salad

Lately I seem to be spending a great deal of my time running around chasing my perpetually on-the-move son. He’s become quite a handful these days; if he’s not climbing on every available surface, he’s playing in the dog’s water dish, or digging in mud, or trying to throw things in the toilet (our coasters narrowly avoided this fate). And now that he’s figured out how move around chairs and stools and climb up on them to get to higher surfaces, nothing is out of reach anymore. This kid is a wild thing.

But, like all wild things, he inevitably reaches a point where he’s too tired to run around anymore, something for which I’m very thankful. Around noon, he crashes for a longish nap which means that at last, I get a break. I’m usually pretty ravenous at this point, so before setting to work on anything else, I take a short break to recharge and eat a quick lunch. And lately I’ve been lunching on this salad.

I make up a big batch of lentils on the weekend and have them ready in the fridge to make this salad at a moment’s notice. And from there, everything else comes together in a snap. Which is good, because most days, I’m all about making things easy. Plus, this salad is hearty, filling, and pretty darn healthy, which are all good things in my book.

I love eating a great big plate of this stuff with a buttered slice of sourdough miche and a cold glass of sparkling water. And to finish it all off, a cup of coffee and a couple of squares of extra dark chocolate. I could probably eat this for lunch every day. You probably could too.

Green Lentil, Arugula, and Smoked Trout Salad

Serves 4 as a main course salad

If you’re like me, you can make the lentils ahead of time and store them, covered, in the fridge. From there, you’ve got only a bit of chopping and mixing between you and this salad.

• 1 cup green lentils, sorted and rinsed
• 2 1/4 cups chicken broth or water
• 1/4 cup white wine
• salt to taste
• 4 cups arugula (loose packed)
• 4 small persian cucumbers, chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped
• 4 oz smoked trout, crumbled
• 2 oz goat cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup chives, chopped (dill works nicely here as well)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (from about 1 large lemon)
• freshly ground black pepper
• flaky sea salt

1. Add lentils, broth and wine to a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover with a lid, and simmer until lentils are tender, about 35-40 minutes. Drain and cool, then add salt to taste.

2. In a large bowl, combine the cooled lentils, arugula, cucumbers, avocado, smoked trout, goat cheese, chives, olive oil, and lemon juice. Mix well, then divide between 4 plates and season with freshly ground black pepper and flaky sea salt. Alternately, you can make individual salads if you won’t be eating all four servings at once. For each salad, you’ll use about ⅔ cup lentils, 1 cup arugula, 1 persian cucumber, ¼ avocado, 1 oz smoked trout, ½ oz goat cheese, 1 Tbsp chives, 1 Tbsp olive oil, and ½ Tbsp lemon juice.