A simple meal

When the 20-something moves out of her parent’s house or college dorm and into her first apartment where food is no longer automatically available, it can be tempting to gravitate toward prepackaged meals. Those can get expensive, though. Sometimes, simple works.

You will need:

• a microwavable plate and bowl, along with either a fork or spoon
• a can of pinto beans (I got a can that only had beans, water and salt. You don’t need any other ingredients in the can.)
• some prewashed spinach leaves (I suppose it would be cheaper to buy spinach and other salad greens unwashed, but the result is that I am too lazy to wash and dry them and they go bad, thus defeating the purpose of having bought them in the first place.)
• a head of broccoli
• red wine vinegar
• some Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Put your prewashed spinach in the bowl. Wash and dry your broccoli and put that in the bowl too. Dress with red wine vinegar to taste.
2. Open the can and pour a bit of the water down the sink, just so you won’t have a bunch of water on the plate. Get some of your beans out of your can and onto a microwavable plate. (Most plastic plates and all metal plates should never go in the microwave, or else melting and explosions respectively.) You can get them out of the can using a fork or spoon. You probably won’t use the whole can, so you can put the rest in the fridge for later.
3. Microwave the beans for 30-60 seconds, depending on strength of microwave.
4. Sprinkle both beans and salad with Parmesan cheese, if desired.
5. Pick up fork and eat super cheap meal!