Last week I promised  you the recipe for the black bean and brown rice salad I served with my Tandoori Chicken.

Let me go back to the previous weekend when I had breakfast with my daughter at Skeetas Restaurant, my Sunday morning writing haunt on the marina. I love it that the wonderful Sunday morning staff know me there, that  I can just walk and sit down at my favourite seat and have my order put down in front of me without having to do any more than smile hello. When I am a  famous writer there will be a plaque next to my table overlooking the boats in the marina, and people will talk about my drinking habits and how I changed from a skinny latte to a regular latte when I did the I Quit Sugar programme and found that full fat milk was better for you.

Anyway enough of my dreams, while we were having our coffee we came across an article in the Sunday Times intriguingly entitled “Do you Have Decision Fatigue?” I must point out that I don’t think this is a very good title for such an article, because if I do suffer from decision fatigue, then answering that question  is just another decision I have to make which is going to make me even more tired.

To continue, apparently Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, has  20 identical grey t-shirts in his closet,  while Steve Jobs, who must have been richer, had 100 black turtleneck t-shirts and blue Levis 50.  The reason these two guys have such amazing ideas is that they didn’t get up each morning and gaze at their wardrobe wondering what to wear that day. Their minds were free to focus on much more important issues. Many men of course have the perfect tool to alleviate decision fatigue, it’s called a wife.

According to this article decision fatigue is a “psychological phenomenom in which our productivity is compromised after we become mentally tired from the daily decisions we have to make” , in other words standing in front of the fridge at the end of the day wondering what to have for tea is just plain exhausting.

Liz and I had quite a long and interesting discussion about this, including the fact that it might be ok for guys to wear the same thing to work everyday but what if women tried it!! President Obama has  rows of identical blue and grey suits with matching accessories in his closet but imagine if Mrs Obama had rows of the identical outfits!! Social media would be agog! I must admit that one thing  I loved about working on a mine site was that I didn’t have to decide what to wear to work every day, I jut grabbed the nearest set of high vis gear and my purple steel capped boots.

Anyway we decided that what we should do was have a batch decision making day, like a batch cooking day without the food, and make all the decisions for the week. I was full of enthusiasm for this but once I had decided on the meals for the week,  and what  I was going to wear to work I sort of ran out of decisions to make. So instead I cooked a big batch of black beans and froze them in meal sized portions.

When it came to deciding on what to serve with the chicken tandoori I decided to just open the fridge door and go with whatever was in there. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how decision fatigued you are,  it was a couple of days after my vegetable box delivery so I had lots of choices. I went with some black beans, some left over brown rice from earlier in the week, chopped capsicum and tomato, chopped left over beans, fresh corn cut from the cob, pomegranate seeds and fresh coriander. Mixed it all together with a slosh of EVOO and  squirt of lime juice…there you go!! Perfect accompaniment to the chicken.

BLACK BEAN AND BROWN RICE SALAD

INGREDIENTS

• Black beans, home cooked or a tin
• Brown rice, cooked
• Assorted salad ingredients chopped – I used corn kernels, capsicum, tomato, beans, pomegranate seedsd
• Coriander leaves
• EVOO
• Lemon or lime juice
• salt and pepper

METHOD

• Toss everything into a bowl, serve with whatever you feel like. Prawns would be nice I think
• Enjoy!!

Oh, and btw, for those who were wondering but didn’t like to ask, (like me at an upmarket restaurant in Perth a couple of weeks ago) EVOO is extra virgin olive oil.