I once spent three days experimenting with different combinations including lentils and I couldn't find anything I really liked. Also, they don't sit well overnight in the refrigerator, so I had to cook up a new batch each day.

Boil them till soft, mix with an egg and some cracker crumbs,minced onions, salt, pepper, and any seasonings you like, then fry up in patties.

Lentil burgers!

Dal

Curried lentils and sweet potatoes.

Last time I fried some bacon in the pan first and then fried the lentils in the grease for a bit before adding water. When the lentils were done I crumbled the bacon and added it back in.

It was...interesting. Tasted good, in the way that cheap and fast student food tastes good.

This is how I make lentil soup:

In a soup pot, fry at least 4 slices of bacon that you've cut into bite-size pieces (of course, you can have more bacon if you wish!). When bacon is just crispy, skim off a little of the fat, and add in a chopped onion. Stir for a couple of minutes till the onion is soft, then add in a couple of diced celery stalks, a diced carrot (or 2), and a bay leaf. Stir for another minute or two, then add in a cup of dry lentils and about six cups of water or stock (I like vegetable stock best). Bring to a boil, then simmer till the lentils are tender, probably about 35 min. Serve with bread and a green salad.

Oh, of course season with salt and pepper, too. Go easy on the salt at first, as the bacon (and stock) may already have salted it fairly well.

Thanks so far everyone!

Daal I have already done to death and I'm bored with it I'm afraid.

Another factor - I absolutely LOATHE LOATHE LOATHE bacon. *listens to the gasps* Surely there is an alternative to bacon that can be used to flavour lentils well? Perhaps something non-meat?

A simple lentil curry: Boil lentils with some salt, cayenne, and turmeric. Reduce heat when it starts to foam and cook until done.
Then saute onions in butter with some jalapeno and stir this into the lentils along with some cilantro.

A variation: Fry some whole cumin seeds, then saute onions. Add ginger, tomatoes, and some jalapeno. Then add this to the cooked lentils. You can also stir in some spinach.

You can make the soup and skip the bacon entirely -- just heat some olive oil and start with the onions. In which case, I'd probably use beef stock to pump up the richness a little.

If you don't like bacon in soup, try Wegman's spicy chili lentil soup. This is my favorite, favoritist recipe -- ever. Even in summer, I love, love, love this. I tend to put more of all the spices in this soup than the recipe calls for -- I use ground chilis instead of cayenne pepper as well. But this is so satisfying!

I can see being tired of dal, afterall one can get tired of everything. But Madhur Jaffrey must have a billion dal recipes across all her books, so maybe one of those can add some variety.

"Surely there is an alternative to bacon..."

That was what I was looking for as well. I love bacon but I do not want the fat.

My last lentil soup tasted damn good... I put the lentils in some turkey broth I had from boiling a turkey leg for Sky, and sauteed chopped onion, bell pepper (red and green), one long hot pepper, carrots, and celery (? -I can't actually remember if I had celery on hand last time... anyway, not a lot) in olive oil and added to the pot of lentils and broth, threw in some chopped tomato and potato and some chopped Italian parsley, plus a bit of cooked smoked sausage that was left over (cut up into teenyweeny little bits). Salt and pepper... and, oddly - a splash of Teriyaki (just an idea I had).

It was great! Best lentil soup in my many, many (many) years of making lentil soup.

My go-to cold lentil salad recipe:

Cold lentil salad

Excellent topped with grilled shrimp or chicken or flank steak. I also add Dijon to the vinaigrette sometimes and will roast or saute the vegetation.