Anyone who knows me knows that I can cook, but think it a waste of time. I am, however, perfectly willing to mix things up and assemble food. In fact, if I can put my major source of dinner in one bowl [e.g., bowl of pasta with veggies, bowl of salad, bowl of soup], I consider in a triumph. These tendencies inspire my cold chili glop, detailed below.
One of my favorite foods is nachos with cheese, salsa and sour cream. Relatively easy, although they do require cooking to melt the cheese. Besides, they provide more fats than protein, especially from the sour cream.
To improve nachos, I use lowfat plain yogurt, rather than sour cream. The yogurt tastes better and, as a bonus, I can eat the extra for breakfast. So right there we have protein with less fat.
Still no complementary amino acids, though. To that end, I use canned black beans [rinsed, of course], which add protein, essential amino acids and fiber, not to mention yumminess.
About this point, I get really lazy and don’t feel like either cooking or grating cheese. I end up mixing salsa, yogurt, pre-grated cheese and beans in one container to make cold bean dip glop. Sometimes I crush the chips and mix them in to make cold nacho bean glop.
Tonight I realized that, with minimal cooking, I could throw a bunch of ingredients together and get a cold chili glop for lunches!
16 oz. lowfat plain yogurt + 16 oz. mild salsa + 1 can black beans [rinsed] + 2 cups brown rice [1 cup uncooked] = cold chili glop! Tortilla chips optional!
Protein, fiber, a nice amount of fat, dairy, relatively low sugars, veggies and lots of fiber, all in one big Tupperware container. Cheap too!
The only problem is that I have basmati rice, which takes about 40 minutes to cook, which is about 40 minutes too long for me. There has to be a brown rice that takes half that time or less to cook.
2 Comments
You need a microwave rice cooker. I can make brown basmati rice in 30 minutes in that. White basmati rice in 11 minutes.
Or, find pre-cooked brown rice. I know Trader Joe’s has some.
A mix I like to make involves canned black beans, canned sweet corn, and a can of tomatoes with green chilis, or just plain diced tomatoes.
I haven’t tried it with canned chili beans, though I do like to heat and mash those for not-quite-refried-beans with our taco-type things.
Thanks for this easy, healthy recipe. My idea of lazy is shaking McCain 5-Minute fries onto a paper plate and zapping them for about 3 minutes in the microwave. Add ketchup and insert into mouth. Mmmm … Or open a bag of Baked Lays potato chips and chew steady LOL
I’m not a big bean fan, but I could eat hot kidney beans, hot or cool garbanzo beans (yum), or hot or cool black beans. Ready made red pepper hummus is nice with pita strips or toasted rye bread.
On the other, less lazy hand ha, ha – I’d probably have the beans in the center and the other stuff in mini dollops surrounding the beans. Food aesthetics a la Dana … but delivered on a paper plate. Because I don’t stray too far from lazy when it comes to eating LOL