Lentil Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

This recipe is so easy. Here it is.

• 1 lb lentils
• salt
• 1 1/2 cup of red grapes, cut in half
  
• 1 1/2 cup of green grapes, cut in half
  
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
  
• 2 scallions, chopped
• zest of 2 lemons
• goat cheese (optional)
• your favorite nuts, toasted
  

For the vinaigrette.

• juice of 2 lemons
• 1/3 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper

So here are the instructions. They're a little long because I like to be wordy and spell everything out:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil (about 8 cups for 1 lb of lentils). Add salt for flavor.
2. Clean your lentils by putting them in a strainer and running water through it just to make sure there's not dirt. Run your finger through them to make sure no other foreign objects are in there. When that's done, stick your lentils into your pot of boiling water for about 18 minutes.
3. Cut your green and red grapes right in half and stick them in a large bowl.
   
4. Clean and dice up your red pepper. We want to use red because they're sweeter than green. To clean out the bell peppers, you just cut the stem off, cut the pepper right in half and you can just scoop out all the membranes and seeds and throw them in the trash. I do it a different way but I can't quite explain it in words... and it all gets you to the same place anyways. Yup, then dice them and stick them into the bowl.
5. Chop up 2 things of scallions and throw them in as well.
6. Zest two lemons right over the bowl. When you're done, give it all a good mix just so you don't get huge clumps of zest in your salad.
7. Now to make the vinaigrette. Squeeze the juice of two lemons into another bowl.
8. Now, while you whisk, slowly pour in your E.V.O.O. so that it incorporates nicely with the lemon. We want extra virgin because it's fruitier. And fruity is good for this salad.
9. Now pour in your salt and pepper. Stir and you're done!
   
10. When your lentils are finished, strain them and lay them out on a wide plate, letting them cool down for 5 or so minutes. Use more than one plate if you need to (more surface area = they cool down faster. Makes sense).
11. Then put the lentils in your bowl with the lemon vinaigrette. Make sure you toss it very well so that everything's all nice and mixed in.
12. Then you're ready to serve. I just put a dallop of goat cheese to add a little creaminess and tartness. To keep this vegetarian (vegan even!), totally just omit this step.
    
13. For texture, which I unfortunately didn't do, you would add your favorite nuts on top. This salad is very soft, very mushy naturally. The crunchiest things in it are your grapes and bell pepper chunks so just to add a little more protein and a lot more crunch, I highly recommend adding nuts. Toast them in the oven for a few minutes to bring out flavor if you want. Then you would sprinkle liberally over the top of your lentil salad and there you have it. This takes 25 or so minutes - tops and it's very nice and citrusy, which I like.