The other day I was hungry, but there was no food in the house. This is normal but annoying. So I looked around to find something that would actually provide sustenance. We pretty much always have beans and rice; this time I found beans and barley. So I made a batch of refried beans and put a cup of barley in the rice cooker, and when everything was done, I proceeded to look at it and notice that I didn't really want a burrito at all. In fact, I appeared to want, say, some lettuce, which we did not have.

We did have quarts and quarts of broth in blocks in the freezer, however, and it would be silly not to eat any of the gigantic amount of food already made. So I defrosted a cake of broth, dumped in some beans and barley, and toasted half a loaf of bread. That was much better.

Refried beans are pretty thoroughly covered already. Barley is cooked just like rice, and broth is made from a chicken or many vegetables. We eat the same things all the time; can you tell?