Lentils on Toast with Mushroom Sauce

This one evolved while I was busy cooking other things. In the hope that people are coming to see the house this weekend, I made food for a few days so that I won't have to make the mess (or the smells - we've had some scent-sensitive prospectives) of food prep over the weekend. I sauted some mushrooms with some garlic and butter intending to use them in a quiche. Having forgotten them while I was trying to get Aiden to take a nap, I returned to my mushrooms to find them quite brown - not burnt, but well carmelized. I poured the mushrooms into a bowl to wait for their intended use, and the remaining bits of mushroom and garlic and brown-ness just begged to be made into a pan sauce. But I needed something to put my sauce on...and the following was born. Needless to say, the quiche has no mushrooms.

For the Lentils:
about 3 TB chopped onion
one medium sized carrot, diced
1/2 cup lentils

Drizzle a little olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the onions cook until starting to brown. Add the carrots and give the pan a shake - leave them there for a few minutes before adding the lentils. Add the lentils and stir. Let the whole thing cook for about 3 minutes. Pour in enough water to cover the mixture. Cook, uncovered, adding water as neccesary, until the lentils begin to soften. When they are just about as soft as you like them, stop adding water and turn down the heat a bit. Cook until most of the water is absorbed.

For the sauce:
several mushrooms, sliced (I will guess that this was more than 8 oz)
3 cloves garlic
1-2 TB butter
1 cup water with a heaping tsp of cornstarch stirred in
1 cube (or tsp) beef boullion
a splash or two of red wine vinegar
a squirt of ketchup (just trust me)
a squirt of spicy brown mustard (or whatever you fancy)
a couple heaping spoons of sour cream

Melt butter in a saute pan. Slice garlic into the butter and let cook for a bit. Add mushrooms, cover. Come back every now and then to give the mushrooms a stir. As they give up their moisture the pan will have a lot of water in it. You'll keep cooking the mushrooms until this dries up, so if you are in a hurry, uncover the pan. Once you have some nice browning going on, turn off the heat and remove mushrooms from the pan. Return the pan to the burner, over mediumish heat, and pour in a splash or two of red wine vinegar. Use a wooden spoon and the vinegar to scrape up all the yumminess in the pan. Now pour in the cornstarch/water mixture and boullion and let simmer. After it has thickened up a little stir in the sour cream, ketchup and mustard. Stir in the mushrooms to heat through.

Now toast some grainy bread (I had this on some rice bread, ask me and I'll tell you how I made it) and spoon some lentils on your toast and put some sauce on top of that. The lentils are a little bland and the sauce is quite strong, so if that displeases you rearrange the distribution of the ingredients a little. But altogether the combination is quite tasty. Next time I make this I'll double the sauce - as it is I won't have enough sauce for all the lentils.