Tag Archives: beans

I’m to Blame for the Blah

My rather blah weekend continues with a Wrist to Forehead Sunday Post.  To anybody who is playing that miniature violin (So snarky! And you know who you are), I point out that I am well aware I have only myself to blame for the blah (ooh, that might make a good headline! So alliterative).  Really, if blah is the worst thing that happens to me, I am ahead of the game.

I ran again this morning.  That is two days in a row of 20-minute runs. Exercise is very important.  I must get more of it.  Later I went to breakfast at Farm House Restaurant in Ilion NY.  It was either do the dishes, cook eggs in a big frying pan, or go out to eat.  I feel I made the right decision.

A good place to eat.

Later in the day I fixed myself hot dogs and beans.  I had gotten them for the Fourth of July but then decided to avoid fatty foods so close to the Boilermaker 15K.  For the past week every night after work, I had nothing in the house to eat yet felt it was entirely too much trouble to heat up hot dogs and beans.

“It doesn’t take much,” my mother pointed out to me.  I call my parents almost every day.

“These days,”  I replied, “it doesn’t take much for me to say, ‘Oh that’s too much trouble!’ ”

Today I discovered that it was in fact very little trouble.  I was inordinately pleased with myself.  I think I made the right choice there.  I could have been disgusted with myself for not cooking the hot dogs and beans sooner.  Instead I felt pleased.

So this is my blog post of blah weekend with hot dogs and beans.  Maybe I should have mentioned the hot dogs and beans in the headline.  Any thoughts?

 

Soup du Cold Jour

Last night I improvised a soup I thought might be worth a blog post.

I used a smaller pot than I usually make soup in, because I have a tendency to make huge pots of soup that don’t all get eaten. I chopped up a half a yellow onion I had in the fridge and put it in olive oil. I added a green pepper and put the lid on tightly. This is my trick when I cook things in olive oil. The moisture from the vegetables stay in the pot and they end up getting steamed or even boiled if there are enough vegetables.

I crushed some garlic and set the timer for 15 minutes, so it could breathe, or whatever it does. Then I added it to the pot.

When the pepper and onions were soft I added chicken broth, lentils and a can of Great Northern beans. I had originally thought to use black beans, but my back was bothering me and I just couldn’t keep bending over to search the cabinet. It is a most inconvenient cabinet.

When I had been planning the soup in my head, I had thought a can of diced tomatoes would be good, but I did not have any of those. Must remember to add that to the grocery list. I put in basil, oregano, lemon pepper, cumin and parsley flakes. Then I just let it simmer.

I added more chicken broth as some cooked away. It ended up being a not very brothy soup, but it tasted pretty good.

Steven put the leftovers in the freezer, so now we have that to look forward to on a future cold day. Maybe with some kind of hearty bread. I guess winter does have its compensations.