A recent Writin' Rations™ I came up with

For true qualification as Writin' Rations™, this dish must be made using some prefabricated ingredients, as much as that fills me with guilt and horror. However, as you know, the rules for Writin' Rations™ are that the dish be quick, easy, nutritionally not so bad, and good-tasting, suitable for busy and distracted writers to make in a hurry and eat without damaging their health. So that's why it requires canned beans and store-bought barbecue sauce. But if you had already received the whopper check for your advance, you could take your time and use dried beans and make your own barbecue sauce. I wish for you this happy circumstance.

Barbecue Beans and Rice

• One large can of beans (my favorite is black beans), or, if you have your advance check sitting cheerily in your bank account, an equivalent amount of dried beans, soaked and cooked to the degree that pleases you
• two cups of raw rice
• one large carrot, or maybe one red pepper/capsicum, or both, chopped into rather small pieces
• one cup (or so) of barbecue sauce
• a half-teaspoon of salt (optional)
• enough slices of cheddar cheese (or enough grated cheese) to cover the top of whatever you're going to bake your rice dish in

Cook the rice. While it's cooking, preheat your oven to about 350F (175C) or whatever temperature you trust for your oven to bake a casserole at. Drain and rinse the beans. When the rice is done, combine it with the beans, the chopped-up veggies, the barbecue sauce, and the optional salt (may want to taste the mixture before deciding to add salt; it depends on how salty the barbecue sauce is). Dump the mixture into a large casserole dish, and cover the top with cheese. Bake until it's sizzling and the cheese is nice and toasty.

It tastes like it's bad for you, but really, it isn't. Except for the cheese (and there's really not much of that per serving), it's low-fat. The cheese and beans add protein. The amount of barbecue sauce (and hence the amount of sugar etc.) per serving is fairly miniscule. And it's got veggies in it! What's not to love???