I’m trying to eat more beans. To cook dry beans once a week at least.

This week t’was black eyed peas, soaked for 24 hours because I didn’t think it’d take me that long to get to them. Cooked this morning in chicken stock (it was open), dried red peppers (sweet, and getting old, bought in Syria), and one bay leaf from Montenegro, courtesy of our friend Indira. I realize that most people don’t get up hours before they go to work but I do, and if I’m good I get up and do a wee bit of yoga and my neck doesn’t hurt. And then my neck stops hurting and I stop doing yoga. But I still get up hours before I leave the house. So it works for me to put a pot of beans on in the morning, do yoga, take a shower, make breakfast, eat breakfast, turn the beans off, get dressed, put the beans in the fridge, leave the house. Maybe other people can’t do this. Either way, I did.  And I put a box of frozen spinach out to thaw.

I had it with fried polenta and parmesean when I got home from capieora. Super simple, but super good.

Do you have strategies for starting dinner in the morning? Or just generally ahead of time?

Fried polenta is great when I think of it. I actually bought and roasted some green chiles and made a loaf (Is that the right word? the idea of molded  food is gnarly enough that I have trouble even talking about it, even when it is polenta, which is excellent.)  of polenta last week and have been slowly working my way through it, fried with a fried egg for breakfast on egg mornings. It is good comfort food and goes pretty well with just salad if we’re lazy.

PS. I’m defensive about the chicken stock. I’m not a vegetarian, but I still think it is kind of silly to cook a whole vegetarian meal in meat broth. But I had it, see. And it was open. So I used it. I’ve actually gone a few rounds with DIY stock — one onion, one carrot, a lot of rosemary — which works well, too.