I am, at heart, cheap. Sure, call me thrifty, frugal, whatever, but I'm cheap. Sometimes this is a fault. I'll unintentionally end up with someone giving more than I had intended because of my aforementioned “frugality.” Sometimes, however, my cheapness is a boon. The other night I wanted to make brown rice for dinner. Brown rice and ________. I didn't have a clue. Eli is not a big fan of stir-fry, and we don't usually do meat as a main dish, and it just didn't occur to me to make a great saucy/stew concoction. But there was a jar of lentils sitting on top of the stove. And I've been pumping up my use of onion as a vegetable, not just a seasoning, and magic went to work in my kitchen.I sauteed 2 medium onions on med high in 1 1/2 tbsp butter and a little salt, allowing them to brown (browning is key), after they were fairly well cooked I added 3/4 cups brown rice and sauteed until translucent. Then I added 3/4 cups lentils and a few cloves of minced garlic and sauteed about a minute longer. Then I added 3 1/2 cups hot water (I have an electric tea kettle, it's fine to use cold H2O) and 2 teaspoons of Better than Bullion (the amount to make 2 cups of broth). First I grabbed my veggie bullion, but it has tomatoes in it and the acid slows lentils cooking time, so I pulled out a new jar: turkey bullion. Who knew there was such a thing! But it was on clearance at the co-op, so I went for it. Anyway, I brought it all up to a boil, reduced to a simmer, put a lid on it, and let it do it's thing for 35 min. the result: amazing mejadra like lentil-rice pilaf.I served it with broccoli and pickled beets. The rice and lentils is a complete protein and we had orange sections for dessert to make the iron in the broccoli more accessible. The whole family thought it was great. I felt like a queen having fed my family a very healthy, delicious dinner. That's another point for frugality.