Beans and Rice

We've been eating a lot of this lately.



And of course, a side dish of veggies and some kind of sauce to go with it. Most of the time I use Chef AJ's Yummy Sauce, some variation of a nutritional yeast based cheese sauce, Mary McDougall's mushroom gravy, or just dump some store-bought salsa on top.

It's not always plain old beans, either. One of our new favorites is Chef AJ's Red Lentil Chili.



While she enjoys hers over potatoes, we prefer rice or Happy Herbivore's cornbread.



I still can't get our son to go along with this meal (He's still as picky an eater at 30 as he was at 3), but now my younger brother and his wife eat this way a couple times a week for dinner and he said he takes leftovers with him to work every day. I'll make a McDougaller out of him yet!

As you may be able to tell, now that summer's heat is here I'm not doing as much experimenting in the kitchen. I've made some of the simple recipes Chef AJ demos in this video:



but mostly it's been some old tried-and-true sauces over beans and rice, beans and potatoes, beans and pasta, beans and quinoa, beans and faro, etc. with veggies. I pop the rice into the rice cooker, the veggies into the microwave, and when all is done, mix them together in the rice cooker to keep warm until my husband and I feel like eating. People have told me I could also cook the veggies in the rice cooker at the same time, but I prefer the softer bite from microwaving. So one extra dish to wash, no biggie. My kitchen stays a bit cooler (it stays a steady 85 during the summer months, thanks to being on the top floor with a flat roof overhead), and every degree counts. 

Casseroles and other dishes that require the oven will have to wait for October again. With the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook coming out in early September, I'll be itching to try new meals about then. For now, we're happy with our monotonous meals of beans and rice.