So I’m tired and fatigued because my dietary options the past week were not ideal. Before I started my official transition, I had already been eating less meat products for about two months so having to resort to meat as a first option for protein has really caused some turmoil in my system.

We’re currently experiencing a few domestic water issues at home that have disenfranchised my kitchen. Of course this slightly dropped my spirits because it happened at the most opportune time–not! Nonetheless, I have two wonderful friends whom own a home and have allowed me to meal prep in their kitchen. So I am currently fixing a mass production of rice and bean dishes to keep as staple dishes. My other fundamentals will have to be prepared as raw cuisines or grilled ones. I’ll be taking my butt down to the store to pick up some cool grilling cookware. My goal is to start moderately so that i don’t fall in head first.

This week I’m  preparing a yellow rice and Pigeon pea dish. This is one of my favorite dishes from mom’s recipe book. A few alterations are necessary in-order to make it vegan friendly. This has been one of the silliest meal prepping sessions due to my lack of preparing the food to be prepped. What does that mean you say? Well you gotta soak the beans properly before you can cook them properly. This error prolonged my prepping session into the next day which I’m sure my friends were thrilled about. Actually they were pretty cool about it. 🙂 Did I mention it’s important to be surrounded by a supportive team of good people?

In fact here is  a picture of the cheese-less pizza they agreed to eat with me. It was pretty darn good!

Anyways back to the bean and rice cooking. After soaking the beans in cold water for 30 minutes, I added four cups of water to a large stockpot and brought it to a boil. I then added the beans with onions, garlic powder, coconut oil, pepper, and a variety of other seasonings (we are not exactly sure). This mixture was allowed to boil and then reduced to a simmer for sometime. By this time it was midnight and everyone was exhausted so i turned the stove off and left the beans out overnight.

 

The next morning I assumed that the beans would have softened more and brought them to a boil with an additional two cups of water. I also added the yellow rice at this time. About 30 minutes later the dish was complete. The results were best described by my friend’s mother, “hmm this some good hard beans and rice!” Hahaha, that had me cracking up!

 

So the moral of this story is, failing to plan is planning to fail. I’m still eating these beans though.