Quick and Easy Meal: Lorie's Adapted Mongolian Bowl

I know we are all busy, and we would like to learn how to cook healthier meals, even if we're too busy. We really don't want to resort to the instant noodle, or in the Philippines, the instant Pancit Canton (fried noodles) meals. These meals tend to be highly unhealthy, and actually promote obesity. So what do you do, then? Click read more to learn about a quick, but highly healthy recipe for people on the go!

Yesterday, I talked about how we really need to be able to stock up on meals that are not only quick and easy to prepare, but also healthy.

The harassed yuppie normally has little choice but fastfood and instant noodles to choose from when they need a quick bite to eat at night. But thankfully, I need not obese-ify myself on Pancit Canton. I can instead gorge on bananas, oatmeal, as well as meals like these.

And it works! I've thinned down a lot. From a 38-in waistline, I am down to 37 inches on a full belly, and 36 on a meagerly-fed one. I guess I need to walk more, heheh. :p

For those who work at home like me, it would be a great idea for you to keep meal-sized plastic containers lying around. To save time, you could actually prepare the meals on your day off, and just stock them up, ready for reheating.

One kind of meal that I’ve found is rather quick to prepare is patterned after the Mongolian style of cooking, as I’ve taken note from Mongolian restaurants here.

All you need are:

• 1 cup sprouted mung beans
• an onion, diced or chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, diced or chopped
• 2-3 tomatoes, diced
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• oil for sautéing
• black pepper and basil to taste

Boil the batch of sprouted beans first, then refrigerate. You can also cook a batch of rice prior to this, and then refrigerate. When you are ready to prepare your quick “Mongolian” meal, do the following:

Sauté the garlic, onion and tomatoes together in a saucepan. Then when some onion or garlic pieces have browned, add in the sprouted mung beans with them. Let the mixture simmer a bit, then add the rice. When the rice has been added, add sugar, soy sauce, pepper and the basil to the mix. Toss as you let it simmer. When you’ve mixed the meal evenly, you can now take it off the fire, and enjoy!

This is already a big enough meal, and my measurements here are rough estimations. I usually just toss everything in a saucepan and enjoy the meal while surfing and thinking about what to write next.

I also set aside the extra portions for later meals, and I do the same with the oatmeal. I find that meals like these take me only about 15 minutes to make, or less. But we have to consider that the rice was already pre-cooked, while the beans had already been boiled.

I boil the beans because the last time I made these I thought I had experienced food poisoning. Just to be on the safe side, you know.

Well, I’m sure you learned a quick way to feed yourself today. Hope you come back next time!

Thank you for the image:

http://www.dessertcomesfirst.com