And now for something a little bit lighter!

I have never been a very good cook, or comfortable in the kitchen at all. Let's face it: clumsy folk just don't go well with knives and fire. So, in the interest of eating properly so as not to wear myself out during the school year, as well as not re-creating scenes from my childhood in which my mom announces that it her turn to cook and all four of us respond by groaning, I have resolved to learn to cook. Thus far I have been cooking large amounts of food once a week, and then taking portions with me as lunch, ensuring that 1.) I eat lunch, and 2.) I don't just buy a pita from pita pit across the street.

My first adventure in school-food was this amazing black bean slow cooker soup. It was probably the most amazing thing I have ever eaten, once I added the remaining two cans of beans (I used canned beans instead of dried beans- how was I supposed to know that 19oz of dried beans= 3 19oz cans of canned beans??) and had soup rather than colored water. I also just added some cumin powder to sour cream instead of making the toasted cumin seed creme. It was still amazing, as is everything that has appeared on the smitten kitchen blog in all of history. However, despite that it is tagged as a "budget" meal, I actually found this soup kind of pricey. This probably has everything to do with my lack of kitchen expertise (and, all things considered, even a slightly pricey soup evens out if you can turn it into meals for six days). Anyways, the point here is that this soup is is the best soup ever, and that if you can't afford to make this soup for some reason you should make couscous.

My husband has long hair and is barefoot most of the time. This, along with introducing me to couscous last week, gives him official hippy street cred. Also: couscous. This stuff is like heaven in a grain. It is super easy to make (portion out some couscous, boil an equal amount of water, pour water over couscous, stir, cover for five minutes, stir. The end.) and you can do pretty much anything with it. My favourite (slash the easiest thing you could possibly make that is also delicious) is just to make it into a salad. Chop up some cucumber and tomato, scrunch in some feta, add some lemon juice and cumin, and you are set!! This morning I made coffee, did dishes, and made lunch for the week in about twenty minutes. So good!