Katie and I have been rather busy as we settle into this new year. While my daughter typically picks up something to eat while she’s at work or out with friends I usually don’t have time to even think about food until I arrive home from work in the evenings.
By then I’m so tired I don’t even want to think about preparing food, much less eating.
I’ve been experimenting with simple comfort foods as a result. It’s not healthy to survive on the occasional cracker and I need to keep my energy up to maintain my health levels.
The other evening I decided to return to my roots. I fished out some lentils from the cupboard, added some pinto beans and quinoa, and tossed it all in the crock pot with some chili seasoning. No meat–for some reason we won’t eat beans if I add meat to it.
I allowed that concoction to cook overnight, prepared a batch of cornbread, and dug in.
It was delicious.
We’ve been eating heavily on the batch for three days now. It’s starting to get low, so I plan to pick up a bag of Great Northern beans at work this evening and add them to the pot at bedtime.
It is comforting to know that a filling meal is ready and waiting whenever I walk in the door at night. It’s reassuring to be able to toss a bit of healthy food into a container and take it to work. It’s an incredibly good feeling to sit down on my break at work and eat something filling…
…And it warms my frugal soul that the privilege only costs a few pennies each day.
I don’t care if it’s bland. I don’t care if it’s repetitive. It’s a lot easier and cheaper than the sandwiches and microwave stuff I tend to grab at work when I get hungry.
It is the perfect comfort food for the extremely busy. Just toss it in the crock pot and go.
That said, I hope to experiment with other perpetual meals. I’m in search of a variety of recipes that I can toss into the crock pot and eat on for days.
If you have any ideas to help out this culinary, time-stretched old biddy, please share them in the comments. Thanks!