lunch

I worked with beans and rice. It was a modest success. My concept: treat it like I would a serving of meat.

It was a rough spot to start from. Canned beans, rice that had been through a bit of prep disaster so it tasted of boiled onion.

Beginning by grilling some onion and ginger, a spoonful of curry, I threw that into a bowl with the beans and rice and hacked up some tofu just because. Formed into a patty of sorts I grilled this.

Soon it was clear I was not having a patty, I was having hash. I have no problem with that.

I served this with some pickled vegetables. It was…not too bad.

Give it a grade of: B.

That’s fine. The problem: it’s at about its limit. I see no way to turn it into an “A” Also, way too much prep for an everyday lunch.

The upside: this was worth eating. I won’t ask the questions because I’d never order Indifferent Hash of Leftovers in a restaurant, but it was the first thing I’ve made that I wanted to finish.

It’s lunchtime. I’ve to bread – I could make a sandwich!

My typical sandwiches would be: tuna salad or meat & cheese. Those are out. What do I do? What stands in for the meat?

I can come up with: grilled portobello. grilled eggplant. Yeah, I really hate eggplant. I’m not that lit up about portobellos anymore either.

Setting aside the sandwich, I’ve got some brown rice and beans. What do you do with them? I’m stuck here. I don’t know how to prepare them. A voice inside says “Just treat ’em like you would meat! Season and prepare them the same way.”

I’m not optimistic about that but I’m about to go try. I don’t want to have to dive into a lengthy recipe just to have lunch, but I do not know what to do with my base ingredients.

A question I have for an actual vegetarian is: how do you avoid what I call the “plate of mixed grilled vegetables syndrome”? I’ve seen too much of that in real life, at restaurants, and even in cookbooks.