Curried Lentils

This recipe is originally from Hannah Heis. She and her family eat vegetarian and I asked her for some recipes to help us cut down on our meat consumption. We are not vegetarians, but we only buy high quality meat from ecologically, sustainably, and ethically raised animals. It's more expensive so we just don't eat meat everyday. Anyway, here's the lentil recipe as I make it:

Curried Lentils

1/4 cup olive or safflower oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs curry powder (Badia or Penzey's or other high quality brand)
1 cup lentils
2.5 cups water
2 beef bouillon cubes or 2 tsp Better than Bouillon
1 bay leaf
2 Tbs lemon juice or juice from one whole small lemon
~1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 each of two types of dried fruit (currants, raisins, sweetened cranberries, prunes)
1 medium apple peeled and chopped (less is OK)
~ 4 crimini or button mushrooms finely chopped (twice through an egg slicer)

Saute together oil, onion, and garlic until onion is translucent. Add salt and curry powder, saute for another minute.

Combine lentils, water, bouillon, bay leaf, and onion mixture together. Bring to a boil and simmer (covered) 20 minutes.

Add lemon juice, parsley, dried fruit, apple, and mushrooms. Simmer another 15 minutes (covered) or until lentils are tender. Add 1/4 cup water if it's dry. Serve over jasmine rice.

It freezes well.

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A note about the curry powder:
The quality of the curry powder will make or break this dish. If you look at the ingredients on different curry powders, they vary. I'm not sure what the difference is exactly, but I can tell by smelling which ones will work well. You want a curry powder that smells sweet. You will have to compare to know what I mean.

A note about the fruit and mushrooms:
This part of the dish I vary all the time based on what I have in the house. I never do more than 1/2 cup of dried fruit total. My most recent version used currants and diced prunes, 1/3 of a large apple and I didn't have any mushrooms. The mushrooms add a more meaty flavor. You don't want to add too much fruit and mushrooms or it will overpower the lentils, but some variation will work well and it adds nice flavor.