Knowing what my week looked like, I set about making a plan on how to line up the meals. Usually, part of my strategy is to look at what we have and what is risking going bad and how I can try to ‘get rid of this’ (without waste). Looking at the schedule I also have need to have some leftovers or at least quick meals.

Currently, my biggest problem is that my freezer is at capacity. I also know that is a good problem to have. However, inheriting a lot of food yields things that we wouldn’t normally purchase or prepare. With that, I am trying to clear up space while trying to do new and interesting things (that will be eaten). We got an open package of pot stickers to finish off last night.

Yesterday, I talked about beans. I don’t always, but I did decide to pair with rice for my fish tacos. I partially did that because I was expecting to make fried rice with the pot stickers the next day. How do you make rice that pairs with beans and can then be repurposed to Asian the next day and by the way make it vegan and meat only eaters will eat it? Well it is not easy, but we found a way to make it work.

Let me diverge a slight bit, I am going to beat up on Mexican restaurants again. When you go out, the only rice you see is reddish in color and has some degree of seasoning. That is an attempt to make the classic rice preparation which is essentially rice made in salsa (at least that is the color). The best way to finish the combination is balance the remainder of the liquid with chicken broth and add some cumin.

I learned a long time ago that is only one way to prepare rice. You can omit the salsa and make a white rice (with onion). This is more typical in the southern part of Mexico. Cumin is out if it is to become fried rice tomorrow and of course chicken broth fails the vegan test. We also learned recently another way of doing it which is to use coconut water. This becomes more Caribbean and leans more to the Asian for sure. Plus, I think that it is highly appropriate for fish tacos.

I softened some onion and then browned some rice. Then, I added the coconut water and made rice the way you normally would. Typically, part of the recipe is also coconut milk as well, I just wanted a small amount for us, so I omitted that this time. and that is it.

The next day, I fried some vegetables and added the rice, some soy sauce and viola. Again, to keep this vegan I had to omit the butter, egg or fish sauce. But, it was good enough to pair with pot stickers and green beans in black bean sauce.

End Your Programming Routine: With planning and modification, you can span the globe in two nights with half the amount of work. That may be a slight exaggeration but the principle holds true. The other advantage is that it reduces the chance of orphaned side dishes that can sometimes be difficult to eat or pair. Not every meal is fancy, tonight there is enough from the previous meals in the last couple of days for leftovers too.