Lazy dinners

What do you do on those nights when you just can't be bothered cooking? Takeaways? Beans on toast? Or throw together something incredibly simple with ingredients you always have on hand?

Tonight's been one of those nights for me. Therefore dinner is one of the simplest meals in my repertoire - spag bol, the meatless kind.

Serves around 4 people

Put 2 pots of water on the stove top to boil. In one, boil 1 1/2 cups red lentils for 8-10 minutes. The other is for the pasta (used 1/2 bag budget spaghetti - that's 30 whole cents worth).

Chop a couple of cloves of garlic and one onion. Fry in a little oil. Then add the lentils, a can of tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, soy sauce, vegetable stock, worchestershire sauce, salt & pepper, dried herbs and either a little water or red wine. Chuck in any vegetables sitting in the fridge or freezer - tonight's had capsicum, frozen veges  and handful of baby spinach stirred through at the end. Top with cheese and voila, a cheap, easy and healthy meal that took bugger all time to prepare.

It's just missing the meat, really. The original recipe can be found on the Healthy Food Guide website. It was in the first issue I ever bought which has been well thumbed as it tells you all about how to cook pulses and beans  which saves a bundle being able to buy them dry rather than in a tin.