The Very End of The Month Meal - The Mother of Invention

I don't know about you, but many times as the last few days of the month arrive and the fridge becomes emptier and emptier, it is a royal pain in the butt to prepare a good meal.

For the past week, my son and I existed on "soft" food as a result of his teeth extraction last week. He could not eat solid foods so the alternative was mostly liquid meals for him.

It suited me perfectly as the fridge was quite empty by now. I could also take a rest from preparing meals... I'm terribly lazy sometimes.

But!

Tonight I really felt the need for something more substantial than soup or scrambled eggs. I suspected son also felt like this. The only problem was that all I had in the fridge were 2 pieces of hake, 4 eggs and some frozen green beans.

There were also tomatoes and a small piece of cheese. I'm lazy sometimes - even when it comes to shopping...

Imagination is the mother of invention or something like that... "unquoted", (I made this up myself)

What to do, what to do?

The image at the beginning of this post shows what I did with the ingredients I had on hand but I will also give you step by step instructions if you want to try this meal:

I...

• Steam fried the two pieces of hake (as is) in a pan with lots of lemon juice until cooked and firm. The lemon juice reacts with the natural liquid that escapes from the fish once it starts cooking, flavours the fish and turns it an even golden brown colour if you turn the heat down and let it cook slowly.

Tip: Do not overcook as you will get tough, leathery fish. It should be firm yet you should be able to flake it easily with a fork if you want to see if it is done.

• Chopped 1 onion finely, sauteed it in just a tiny amount of oil until golden brown. While this was going on, I popped the frozen beans into the microwave, 8 minutes on 20% heat.
• Added the beans to the onions, added a little bit of crushed garlic, stirred everything until it was mixed, added more lemon juice, salt and dried celery, stirred again.
• Placed the lid on the pan, turned down the heat and let it simmer for a further 3-5 minutes.
• I then made 4 shallow holes in the onion and bean mixture, broke the eggs one by one in each hole, placed the lid of the pan back until the eggs were set.
• Returned the two pieces of hake to the pan, added 5ml of boiling water to provide some steam to heat up the hake again and voila!

Tip: Adding a little water to the pan and covering it with the lid when you fry eggs result in perfectly set whites and yolks. Try it!

I ENDED UP WITH...

A very tasty and healthy meal if you are not into food smothered with rich sauces.

Afterthought:

I could have grated the last piece of cheese and sprinkled it on top of the other ingredients, I could also have made tomato salad. Totally forgot about the cheese and was too lazy to make a salad. Besides, son does not eat tomatoes.

I'm lazy! Oh yes, I told you that already...

Agatha Christie summed it up nicely:

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”

As always, have fun and enjoy what you do
@elsievr