More of the same?

Since my last blog post, I have gone grocery shopping at least 3 different times to different stores, finding quite an assortment of foods, including müesli, bread, cheese, green beans, honey, bread, apples, bread, well, you get the picture. Basically, the winner this time has been bread, which is why I haven't posted anything recently, since most of my meals (breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, bedtime snack) since discovering this wonderfully tasty bread (of course, I've forgotten what it's called) have been just that: bread, milk, and honey.

Nevertheless, here is yesterday's lunch.

First of all, it is a very balanced meal. There is the staple of lentils and rice, along with the peas, which are definitely my favorite vegetable, simply because they're tasty and very easy to make edible (e.g. you can just take them out of the freezer and eat). Even if you're pickier than I am, and refuse to eat them until cooked, you can just pop them in the microwave with a bit of water for a few minutes and voilà! That is the correct way to use a microwave!

Then on the side there are green beans, bought by the half-kilo at the market usually every times I go. I use about half of them each time I make them, so that's about a half pound of green beans for one meal. There's also a banana, to make it a perfectly well-rounded meal (the only thing that could have made this more well-rounded would have been an orange, since it's round). Then, for fun, is the amazing bread with some goat cheese on top.

I almost forgot. I had to be really creative and forgo my normal bread-and-milk subsistence for lunch yesterday because I have to take my new medication at lunch, and I'm not supposed to have dairy for three hours before and after taking it. So the goat cheese ended up being a nice touch as well as a very tasty one!

The good: This is ridiculously healthy. And the bread and cheese was really great.

The bad: You know that idea I had, the one where I was going to only add half of a bouillon cube? Well, I totally forgot to add any, so in addition to overcooking the rice, the lentils and rice combo was ridiculously tasteless (and I made way too much, so lots of tasteless leftovers too). Luckily I had some instant flavor (a.k.a. teriyaki sauce which tastes exactly like soy sauce) and then it was marginally salvageable.

The verdict: Don't forget salt or some other flavoring (or should I say flavouring?) because you can't get much more bland than lentils and rice. Next time, I will remember the bouillon.

Also, a brief interlude, on green beans.

These are green beans:

That speckled white stuff in the pan is minced garlic. If you don't have a garlic press, you can just chop it REALLY finely with a chopping knife (one of the really enormous ones). This is my favorite way to make green beans, and pretty much the only way I make them, actually. Unfortunately I don't quite have the hang of how to cook them where they are actually cooked, but not soggy.

For making Wunderbare (Wonderful) Green Beans™

Step 1: Snap the ends off of the beans. (Oh, and rinse them if they're dirty or have pesticides, but then dry them reasonably well. You don't want to get splattered with oil later.)

Step 2: Heat the pan with some olive oil. (The type of oil isn't all that important; I just like using olive oil for all of my frying.)

Step 3: Add the green beans and turn the heat down to medium or medium-low. Make sure the beans don't scorch.† Keep stirring them frequently with a spatula.

Step 4: When they are at least halfway done, add the minced garlic. (You might think to add it earlier with the oil, but the problem with that is that it gets all crispy and brown or black by the time the green beans are done, and then it doesn't taste good at all.†† You want it at most golden-brown by the end.)

Step 5: They're done when they are still squeaky when you eat them, but a darker shade of green and not quite as crisp. Let me know if you have any better ways for figuring out when they're done.

Step 6: Enjoy!

† I did this tonight.

†† I did this yesterday.

Also, today's lunch was leftovers of this. Except there were hardly any green beans left. And no goat cheese. :( And I replaced the teriyaki sauce with ketchup, which was also pretty good.