Heart Eyes, Vol. 234: #orjenise100 and French Onion Baked Lentils & Farro
Friends! Hello. Happy Friday. This weekend is looking decidedly drippy in my neck of the woods, and I know I can’t be the only one looking to hunker down and wait out some weather. Blankets, hot drinks, and soft-pants time for all, I say!
Whatever you’re doing on this winter weekend, I hope it’s just the right thing. I think you’re doing great.
How to Make a Little Space in Your Space: #orjenise100
I feel like I’m taking a new approach to January this year, and that approach is to not do very much. Eaaaase into the year. Winter, as a verb. It’s been pretty wonderful and I think I won’t be going back. Whose idea was it, anyway, to try to dive into ambition and self-improvement when the days are so short and the outside atmosphere so unfriendly?
At the same time, I do think there’s something to be said for using some of this cozy time to get one’s house a little bit in order—especially if it can be done in small and painless increments, which is where the Jenn Jordan (@orjenise), a professional organizer in the UK, comes in. Brought to my attention on Instagram by Friend of Heart Eyes Pia, Jenn is running #orjenise100, a monthlong series of daily small tasks intended to help get 100 objects out of your house in about five minutes a day. I’m finding it gloriously casual and wonderfully doable: things like “look through your medicine cabinet and throw out anything expired” (Day 7) and “tidy up under the kitchen sink” (Day 15), plus responsible (if admittedly mostly UK-specific) ways of getting what you find out of your house. Do I do every day on its intended day, or at all? I do not. But I’ve done many of the days, eventually, and now all my purses are tidy (Day 9) and all my pants fit in the drawer (Day 8), and that feels nice.
Perhaps you would also like to slowly make your house slightly less crowded! It’s not too late to start, and the prompts live on her Instagram grid in perpetuity, so really, any month can be a month of gentle redistributing and organizing.
What to Cook: French Onion Baked Lentils and Farro
BAM.
When was the last time this happened—that Deb posted a new recipe and I made it immediately? SO LONG.
For all my nutritional dependence on Smitten Kitchen, in recent years I’ve been a bit out of sync with the newer recipes on the site—first too busy plowing through The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and then really into (but thankfully not “making every dish” really into) Smitten Kitchen Keepers. I also think Deb herself has been diversifying where she puts her time and energy, which makes sense after all these years.
But it seems like we might be back on track. I’ve recently made three of the four newest recipes on the site: two sweets I’ll tell you about later (both winners!) and her newest dish, French Onion Baked Lentils and Farro, an easy hands-off project for a lazy winter day.
May I recommend that you do the same? This was so tasty—as Deb says, like if risotto and French onion soup had a baby. And that baby was sort of nubbly. And made of whole grains and lentils instead of fancy rice (though, for all you lentil-wary, know that the ratio here is 2/3 farro to 1/3 lentils, and I think you literally will not even notice them against the texture of the farro). And had a generous covering of browned, bubbling Gruyere on top. I’m still eating it, and I still get a little thrill every time I heat some up.
This recipe is not fast, but it is easy, just 1) waiting for onions to caramelize followed by 2) braising them with farro and lentils and stock and thyme until everything is tender. It’s savory, somewhat aggressively cozy winter food that is somehow also not particularly heavy? And that gooey, bronzed Gruyere…I sometimes balk at buying Gruyere because of the price, and I’m sure another Swiss cheese would also work, but that nutty flavor and perfect texture is realllly nice here. Considering the weather basically everywhere this weekend, I think you know what to do.
Blockbuster Review: Royal Wedding (1951)
I had never seen this Fred Astaire movie before. Did I enjoy it? Yes I did! Do I remember anything about it? No I do not! Except Fred Astaire tap-dancing up the walls and across the ceiling, which I imagine was a mind-bender for a lot of people in 1951.