Mujadara...or not

A while ago I came across this book, Not Your Mother's Casseroles by Faith Durand, at the library.  In it, I found a recipe for what is called Mujadara, or lentils and rice.  Mujadara is basically a dish made with lentils, rice and onions.  It seems like just about every Middle Eastern country/region has their own version of this dish.  In some circles, this it is referred to as "Esau's Favorite".  I guess soup, stew and pottage are all interchangeable.

The only thing this dish has in common with the Esau Soup I made earlier, is that they both contain lentils.  They aren't even the same colored lentils though.  The soup calls for red lentils, and in this dish I used your average run of the mill brown cheapy lentils.

The really neat thing about this casserole, or pottage, is that there is no boiling needed. The rice and lentils cook in the oven. This doesn't save you any time. What it is great for is when you can't spend time babysitting pots on the stove. (Like say when you are trying to keep two six year olds occupied.)

Now here is where I take this recipe and go off on a crazy tangent.  I added sausage to my casserole.  Pork Sausage.  Yeah.  Guess I just took all the Middle Eastern out of this dish.  Whatever, it tasted awesome.  And it made the house stink real perty for about four days.  Take that Glade Plug Ins!

So here is the recipe how I made it:
Baked Rice and Lentil Casserole, with Sausage adapted from  Not Your Mother's Casseroles
1 lb bulk breakfast sausage
4 small onions, sliced in half moons
4 c chicken stock
3/4 c brown lentils
1/2 c medium grain brown rice
1/2 t black pepper
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cumin
parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 325. Spray 9x13 dish with cooking spray. Brown the sausage. Remove the sausage to drain. In the sausage grease cook the onions until caramelized. While the onions are cooking, heat the stock to boil in a pan/microwave. Scrape onions into prepared dish. Add, lentils, sausage, rice and spices. Stir, then add boiling broth and stir again. Cover and bake 70 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. (It took 90 minutes for me.) I made some steamed carrots with this dish, which I wound up adding to the finished hotdish. Next time I'll just add carrots in with the rest of the ingredients before baking and save myself an extra step.