I had a fantastic plan for last night’s dinner. It was delicious and healthy and used up all of the starting-to-get-old veggies in the fridge. But I was exhausted last night, so I made an omelet instead. I hate omelets.
My top priority, in meals and most other things, is my health. I’m also concerned about money, especially these days, since I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back to work, and there’s still no word on whether or not my long term disability claim will be approved by the insurance company. Put those together, and it means I’m not eating out. I live near a lot of restaurants, but take-out is a big no-no for both my health and my wallet. So instead, I cook.
Cooking sounds like a great idea, right? It’s healthy and cheap (or can be, depending on how you shop.) The problem is, it takes energy, and since I live alone, I have to do all the cooking. That’s why last night’s dinner ended up being an omelet. That’s why I planned the healthy dinner again for tonight, but again it didn’t happen.
Those veggies in the fridge need to be eaten, but cutting them up just wasn’t going to happen today. I still made the rice, but I skipped the fresh veggies and instead nuked some frozen ones. Forget garlic and onion; that’s too much chopping and garlic powder works just fine. Ok, it’s not as good, but it works! I use dry beans now instead of canned (to avoid BPA and whatnot) and I cook them in large amounts and freeze them in individually portioned bags. This works great, but when I thawed them, they didn’t have a ton of great flavor. Enter garlic powder. And throw them in a pan for a minute with some olive oil. Add the veggies. Splash in the gluten-free soy sauce. And some rice. Now let’s see: starch, protein, lots of veggies. Good enough for me!
Luckily my standards aren’t too high. I don’t need a 5 course meal. I don’t need anything fancy. I don’t even need anything that tastes amazing, just something that doesn’t taste bad. And with minimal effort and very little energy expenditure, I made dinner!
Those veggies will just have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight, I feasted on the easy version. A toast to all of the dinner cheats out there!
If you have a great “easy” version of a meal that you want to share, please add it in the comments! We can all help each other out with new ideas.
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Chronic Rants 