Sat. March 9

I’ve been doing a poor job of photographing food this week as my friend Cat and I have been busy exploring Madrid! But we’ve been eating lots of good things- about 50/50 at home vs meals out. Here’s what our Saturday looked like:

I didn’t take a photo of breakfast, but we had strawberry oatmeal. I used roughyl 1:2 oats to water ratio, and cooked until oatmeal was soft. I put butter, honey, salt, and fresh strawberries in this, although you could do any fruit you like and brown sugar is a great alternative to honey depending on what you have.

One thing I learned from this dinner was how long it takes to cook black beans. I had a very vague idea of how to make them, and would do some things differently but these were still super good and have been the base of our meals/snacks since.

As I did last week, I made lots of different bowl toppings that I have since been combining into dinners when we eat at home.

Components:

Sweet Corn— I just cooked this up in a pan with some olive oil, salt, paprika, and latin cheese that is delightfully chewy when cooked. When the corn starts to brown and tastes great, it’s done.

Guacamole— One avocado made enough for two people. One avocado, diced red onion, diced green bell, diced tomato, juice of 1/2 lime, salt, pepper. Smash everything together until desired consistency, add more salt/pepper/lime juice to taste.

Black Beans— There’s the way one should make black beans, and then the way I made black beans, which took about 8 hours. In the future, I will be soaking my beans overnight, before cooking them the next day. Today, I soaked the beans for about 45 minutes in the morning before getting impatient and starting to cook them. I kept them completely covered with water, simmering on low heat, but I am not exaggerating when I say this took all day before the beans were soft enough to enjoy. That being said, they taste great. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika. In the future, I might also add some onions, peppers, or tomatoes to the pot to give even more flavor. I think cooking them in veggie stock could also work great if you don’t want to deal with specific seasoning. I seasoned my pot a few times throughout the day, and now have a massive container of beans in the fridge that we’ve been enjoying in quesadillas, bowls, and breakfast burritos.

Other bowl ingredients:

• Chopped green bell

• Chopped red onion

• Salsa

• Lime juice, salt, pepper, paprika