Beans! Beans! YAY BEANS!

“I made beans and rice last night,” my coworker informed me proudly.

“I didn’t!” I said.

My coworker was shocked. And rightly so. I eat beans and rice at least eight meals a week.

Because beans and rice are tasty. And cheap. But also? TASTY! As for me and my house, we only eat tasty food. Because what is the point of living if you don’t eat tasty food?

That’s a double serving of beans and rice right there. Using 100% organic ingredients, because that’s how I roll. Including the strained yogurt, the cost for that double serving is $1.95. Sans yogurt? $0.95. Because I bought the expensive I-Promise-Not-To-Dink-Up-Your-Lactose-Intolerant-Digestive-Tract yogurt.

Which lied to me.

But anyway! BEANS ARE AWESOME. Chickpeas make hummus. Kidney beans make chili. Pintos make everything better. And lentils are f’n awesome, yo. For the pulse-challenged, the beanie weanies in the photo above are lentils. Lentils are the gateway drug to serious bean addiction. They cook up in 20 minutes flat, just as fast as pasta, and take a lot of the same toppings as pasta, but have something like 8 of the 12 amino acids that make up ‘complete protein’. The other four are found in rice.

BEANS AND RICE FTW! \o/

However, beans are scary to people for some reason. “I don’t know how to cook with them” I hear a LOT. I also hear that they’re boring. You see that picture up there? Does that look BORING TO YOU? The photo above is dal, which is not crazy-complex, but it does take about an hour with some intense onion carmelization action. Some days, though, all you want to do is boil and eat out of the pot. RECIPE FOR YOU! YAY RECIPE!

Mary Sue’s Italian Lentils
Serves like, four or six.

2c brown or green lentils. Not the little pink ones
1 8oz can of tomato sauce
1 c water
1 T Italian seasoning spice mix

Rinse the lentils. Pick out anything that looks funny and throw it away, because it’s probably a rock. Put the lentils, the water, the tomato sauce, and the Italian seasoning in a saucepan. If the combined ingredients come up more than halfway to the top of the saucepan, GET ANOTHER SAUCEPAN. I cannot stress this enough.

Bring mix to a boil. Turn to low heat and cook another ten minutes. Season with salt and pepper if you feel like it, and serve. With rice. Because RICE IS AWESOME.