Foul Bachelor Vegan

Somehow, over the course of our marriage, my husband became the primary cook. In the beginning, I cooked. I was better at it, and I enjoyed it more, mostly because he had never really done it. It was one of those "we're conforming to gender roles but just because the wife happens to cook" things, but probably resulted from him growing up in a traditional Italian household where teaching the son to cook didn't even occur to them.

Anyway, when I was in law school, I had zero time, so he took over. Gradually, with practice, he became damn good. Also, it allowed him to cover everything in hot peppers, which he loves. So when he became the insanely busy student, the planned switch back never happened. I became addicted to his pasta with rosemary from the cooking water still sticking to the noodles (with jarred sauce and Daiya shreds). I crave his boxed cous-cous with tofu crumble. Even when I come up with the concept for our simple dinners, he is usually the one to execute, partly because I have a bad back, and partly because that lets him cover his half in peppers.

So when he spent four days staying on his out-of-state campus for a research project, my laziness lead me to new depths. I think I had cereal for the first four meals. Then I cleaned the freezer out of frozen dinners.

 Nothing left, I realized I would have to spend more than 20 seconds preparing something. Out came the can of vegan re-fried beans. Day one I put them in a tortilla with Daiya pepperjack. Day two was sour cream and salsa. Then he got home, bearing fresh avocados. You can guess what happened next.

 The sight of that mound of bean mush in the tupperware, bearing the shape of the can like Thanksgiving cranberry sauce, was a little sad. It reminded me of the Sims before you taught your Sim to cook, when she would eat the beans from the can then leave the can on the floor like some Alphabet City heroin addict.

But you know what? Tasted good. Has some nutritional value. Not terribly fattening. So all hail the mighty bean burrito, savior of lazy vegans everywhere.