I Measured and Stuff, and This is What Happened!

I have to say, I'm super proud of myself. Yesterday I went into the kitchen, made up a wonderful recipe, and most importantly, I brought pen and notebook, and remembered to WRITE IT DOWN! And I used measuring cups and spoons!!  I'm getting there, slowly but surely. I made a lentil, pumpkin seed, mushroom pate that I want to marry!!
                                                    Compassionate Pate
                                                        
                                                            3/4 C Lentils
                                                               2  C water
                                                             
                                                               3 T Oil or vegan butter
                                                                1 lg. onion
                                                                3 lg. cloves of garlic
                                                                5 very large button mushrooms( 2 cups when sliced)
                                                                1 T Italian Seasoning
                                                               1/2 C Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
                                                                1 T Red Wine Vinegar
                                                                    S&P to Taste


Put your lentils in a saucepan with the water, bring to a boil, then lower to gently simmer. This should take between 30-45 minutes. While the lentils are cooking, slice your onion, shrooms, and garlic. Knife skills do not matter here, as it will all be getting blended in the end. Start sautéing in a pan with your oil/ or vegan butter. (I used extra virgin olive oil) Start the process on a med. to med. high heat, sprinkle with a little S&P, then lower the heat , add the Italian seasoning, and allow to gently caramelize, about 20-30 minutes.
Once your lentils are done cooking, drain them of any extra water, and put the lentils, onion, shroom mixture, and pumpkin seeds to a food processor, along with the red wine vinegar, and at this point I added about a half teaspoon of sea salt. Buzz away until it is a chunky, thick pate. It will be thicker than hummus.
If you are like me, and you use a blender, put about 1/4 C of water in the bottom of your blender, add the ingredients, and blend away. I added about a Tablespoon of extra olive oil, and about another 1/4 C. of water along with stirring things down. It wasn't much harder than a food processor, and the end result is really worth any extra effort. After it's blended, it needs to chill in the fridge for at least two hours. You will taste a huge difference. It becomes much more solid, and the flavors really combine with each other.
This is a recreation of a Pate I used to make when I still lived in Seattle. It was a walnut, lentil pate that was a real crowd pleaser. I can't remember where I got the recipe from, this was before I used the webz, so it was in a book or magazine. The combination of lentils and mushrooms is a very deep, I guess meaty flavor that is very satisfying. I made a lot of my meatier friends very happy with this.
I slathered some of this on a wheat baguette, added some Swiss style daiya slices(holy yum), a little hot pepper relish, some homemade yellow mustard, and toasted it up in the oven, and my mouth is watering as I'm typing this. It was in the top 5 sandwiches I've ever had. I bet this would be good on a bagel with some sprouts.
When I made the original version, I served it with some stone wheat crackers, and some homemade cashew cheese, and various fancy olives, and it was a party fave. It is one of those recipes that is super inexpensive to make, but it tastes very fancy.