VeganMoFo Day 3 - Simple Everyday Meal

Simple Everyday Meal is one of those meals that needs no recipe. The only ingredients are a bucketload of cooked rice, a giant bag of frozen veggies cooked up, and a can of beans (drained and rinsed, naturally), all tossed together in a big pot or bowl with some seasoning spices and served. If you want a photo, click the link to Jeff's page for it.

I've been doing something similar for years, but in this house we call it Chinese Rice, which I first wrote about in VeganMoFo 2007. I make up a big batch of rice in my rice cooker, and while that's bubbling away I nuke 3 of those small bags of frozen peas and carrots in the microwave. Instead of beans I use either pressed, marinated, then fried (in marinating fluid) tofu or Soy Curls. The kid prefers his dish with just the rice and veggies with a bit of soy sauce, so after he's served I doctor the rest of the pot up with the cooked tofu and sometimes a can of sliced water chestnuts and a can or box of fresh sprouts. My husband douses his with either teriyaki sauce or low-sodium soy sauce, I use a lower sodium garlic ginger teriyaki sauce. My weight is usually up 2 or more pounds the next day from the sodium, because even low-sodium products are still pretty high in salt.

I know Dr. McDougall may not approve of the Soy Curls because even though it's not isolated soy protein it's still high in protein itself, being a processed soy product. It's still better than the decades I used TVP in meals. I used to buy that stuff all the time from The Mail Order Catalog, since the early 1970's at least. I still have some of the smaller unflavored "mince" type of TVP in a container in a closet here, and I really need to toss it out when I finally can dig it up (It's currently buried under some crafting supplies). I used to buy not only unflavored  but also all the flavored ones - beef, chicken, sausage, even ham and pepperoni - in the tiny mince, and the larger chunks of beef flavor to add to stews, chicken flavor chunks and strips to add to stir fries, and even the larger chicken "patty" sized for chicken parmesan and even sandwiches. The beefy mince made great Sloppy Joes. Now I just use cooked lentils for that.