I love homemade bean soup and white beans with ham. I also love baked beans. But how many ways can you eat beans? Beans and rice, rice and beans.... it gets boring after a while, right? The cheapness of beans makes them very desirable as far as stretching your budget. However, coming up with new ideas has stretched my imagination.
I found this post from Biblical Womanhood that really made me think..... beans are so versatile. You just have to find new ways of utilizing them.
I will be making a huge pot of beans this weekend. Probably more than one. Red beans, black beans and kidney beans. Maybe even black eyed peas. Once they are cooked, I will portion them into zip locks in meal sized amounts and freeze them. Way cheaper and better than buying canned beans. Especially since I get the dried beans from WIC right now.
You can also add lentils or beans to a vegetable soup to add the protein that you need. Or, make bean burritos, add them to a Mexican casserole, make a bean soup, use them in place of almost any meat in a casserole dish and even just have them as a side dish. All of this in addition to the basic rice and beans.
Why not give it a try? Post any ideas for using beans here and I will give them a shot! I want to cut back on my meat by AT LEAST 25% over the next month or so. The cost of meat is making it prohibitively expensive to eat every night... especially as a main course!
I will post recipes or ideas as I try them and let you know how this bean menu is coming along!
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A good place to search for vegetarian/meatless recipes is at www.meatlessmonday.com.
I recently work for the Meatless Monday Campaign, a nonprofit public health campaign that encourages Americans to eat less meat – and more vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains. They have a lot of great recipes and tips on meatless cooking. Going meatless at least once a week is way more affordable than eating meat every day. Cutting back just 15% (or one day out of seven) can also be healthier! Just one day a week is enough to reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.
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