Beans, rice, and veggies!

I apologize for the hiatus, and I will also apologize in advance for the upcoming hiatus. Just because I'm blogging all alone here, what with nomad wannabe traversing the world and all.


But, I did cook tonight, so I thought I'd share what I made.


It's very rare that I'll cook a vegetarian meal (I even eat my pasta with meat sauce). I have nothing against veggies, it's just...I like meat! Oddly enough, in the plethora of food blogs I read daily, I have a few vegetarian and vegan sites thrown in. I saw this recipe for a "colorful black bean casserole" on the vegan blog "i eat trees." My friend gave me a zucchini on Wednesday (that she grew in her own garden!), and I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to use it.


I altered the recipe enough that I'll just post my version (though I'm sure the original is delicious!):


3 cups prepared white rice
2 cups cooked black beans
1 zucchini, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
a sprinkling of the mozzarella I had leftover in the freezer
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt, cumin, and black pepper


As her directions say, mix the spices and lemon juice with the rice and beans. Sautee the zucchini, onion, carrots, and garlic until tender. Mix everything else together, throw some cheese on top, and bake at 375 for 25 minutes! Enjoy!

Dried fruity nutty bars.

If you've ever met me, you know I am Cheapy McCheaperson. I love saving money. That's not to say I don't love spending it, too--just I like spending it on long lasting things, like clothes...shoes...beauty products...instead of going out to dinner all willy nilly or buying ice cream from fancy stores instead of Safeway. So, when I discovered Larabars and their overwhelming, wait for it, six ingredients, I thought to myself, I can make that too! So I did. It took me an entire week to track down dates, since Safeway and Trader Joe's didn't carry them. But finally, today, I found them at Whole Foods.  And off to the food processor I went.

(Pardon my photos, there is no natural light in my house at 8:30pm...obviously.)

Ingredients (very scientifically measured out):

14 dates

1/8 cup raisins

3 dried apple slices

8 almonds

A sprinkling of cinnamon

(The actual bars contain walnuts as well, but I'm okay without them.)

Combine in food processor and blend.

Using plastic wrap, smoosh together (again, scientific I am) into something resembling a bar shape. Eat.

As unappetizing as they look, they taste exactly like the real thing! I'm not strong enough to compress the bars the way the factory does with all their robots and such, but whatever, I'll eat it with a spoon if I have to.

Next on the agenda: Catch up on Real Housewives.  I can't wait to find out if Caroline bought some bad ham for the kids to play the ham game with.