Lunch for the Lazy Plant-Eater

Here's a sort of master recipe for a nutritious, inexpensive, and tasty meal that I make for myself all the time when I'm lazy and tired (usually for lunch on a weekend, but this could definitely be dinner or breakfast as well). If you're cooking for other people you can serve it with nice bread or pasta and they won't care that it only took you twenty minutes...

Ingredients (all optional)

• ~1/2 cup of chickpeas, white beans, black beans, or others. 
• an egg or two (if you eat eggs)
• tempeh
• some salsa or tomato sauce or simmer sauce of some kind (these are henceforth referred to as "saucey stuff")
• basil, rosemary, or other herbs of choice
• cumin (actually a really good source of iron!), coriander, tumeric (also a really good source of iron), cayenne, or other spices of choice
• spinach, peppers, potatoes, and/or other veggies
• chopped onions and finely chopped garlic
• olive, canola, or other good cooking oil
• salt and pepper 
• your favorite starchy thing (bread, pasta, etc.)

Procedure

1. Get out some kind of skillet or pan.
2. Warm oil until shimmery. Throw in the onions, then the garlic. Saute until they just start to turn translucent.
3. After steps 1 and 2, which are pretty loose anyway, the rest is just guidelines...
4. Add the peppers and cook until they're a little soft.
5. Add the spices.
6. Add the saucey stuff and the beans.
7. Add the rest of your vegetables. If you're doing tempeh, add that.
8. If you aren't putting in an egg, just simmer and stir occasionally for like 10 minutes or until it seems done.
9. If you ARE having an egg, put it in now. You might want to add more saucey stuff; there should still be a significant layer of liquid covering the bottom of the pan. Crack the egg(s) into the pan and cook until they're done as you like, probably ten to fifteen minutes. Covering the pan might help.
10. Slide everything onto a plate, on top of your starchy thing if you have one of those. You're done!