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Cheap Eats- Budget Lunches IV: Burrito Beans

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This recipe originally came to me as a canning recipe and it was a huge hit with my kids.  Not as spicy as my usual preference for Mexican food, either, so it’s very kid-friendly.  This makes a great lunch for the kids.  If you have leftover browned, ground beef, this is a good place to use it up.

Burrito Beans

From the Menu Mailer
Volume 4 Week 16

2 Tbs coconut oil
1 onion, diced
½ pound dry pinto beans, sprouted/soaked and cooked, or 2 cans
¼ cup tomato sauce
1 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp oregano
dash black pepper
¾ cup beef stock

In a skillet over medium-high heat, heat the coconut oil and saute the onions until tender, about 5 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until it reaches the consistency you desire.

If you have a little extra time to cook, put in extra beef stock and allow it to cook down to concentrate more nutrition into your dish.

Serve on tortillas.  Freeze any extra for another meal

One Track Minds That Get Derailed: Quick Chili

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We are, for the third time this winter, getting snow.  The snow is supposed to fall until Tuesday and we’re not supposed to go above freezing.  Their total prediction for this area is 4-6 inches last I looked, but we already have 3 inches and it’s supposed to snow through Tuesday!  They change the forecast hourly it seems.

Last year during the big 15″ snow, we had no power and I was hunkered down with cabin fever, alternating between loom knitting an afghan on a knitting board and planning the first garden revision via lantern and graph paper. I spent hours on that garden, even after the power came back on.  I became a one-track mind, weaving the garden and a massive expansion plan involving terracing and moving fences into our homestead master plan.  After multiple revisions and hours of discussion, we planted and worked… and worked… and worked.  And the garden failed due to alternating drought and flooding.  Failed miserably and painfully, after the hours of planning and toil.  It was disheartening to the point I decided to scale back for 2011.  With the amount of time and dedication a garden takes, I was scared to devote too much to it and experience another failure.

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Good, Better, Best: When and How to Choose Organic on a Budget

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I’ve had a lot of questions come in based off of the beginnings of the Good, Better, Best series.  Lots of people are asking how I apply what I am writing, and how I make my own choices, since I haven’t been very explicit in telling you where my own lines are.  So I decided to give a quick write-up on where our lines are, and then pick back up on the series. Here’s what I do for my household. They are in order of importance

Fats

Animal fats are critical to buy organic, pastured and grass-fed, as fats are where toxins are stored. Animals raised without chemicals and on their natural diet will have the lowest levels of toxins. For vegetable based fats, like olive and coconut oil, I decide based on price. I buy [Read more…] about Good, Better, Best: When and How to Choose Organic on a Budget

Tamale Pie

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I field a lot of questions about corn and cornmeal and how to absorb more nutrition from it.  My answer is that if you wish to use corn, the best way to do so for the average cook is to use Masa Harina.  Masa is corn that has been soaked in lime, dried and ground into cornmeal.  Store your masa, like all corn flour products, in the freezer.

Masa can be used to make tortillas, cornbread-crusted dishes and more.  Due to the change in flavor brought about by the lime, it especially works well with Mexican-flavored dishes. I sometimes make a pan of masa-based cornbread to go with Mexican dishes when we’re tired of rice.

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Six Ways to Save Time in the Kitchen

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I often get asked how I determine how much time it takes to cook a recipe.  Normally, when someone asks this, they take longer on most recipes and want to know why.  Here are a few tips and tricks I use to streamline my time in the kitchen.

1.  Label Everything

If you don’t have to stand around trying to figure out which package of frozen meat blobs is the right cut, you waste less time.  Ditto for the identical looking white powder line-up:  tapioca flour, baking soda, baking powder, potato starch, arrowroot starch and xanthan gum.  No, you really won’t remember what that mystery blob is six months from now.  Label and date everything.

2.  Group like items together

I have a baking center set up in my kitchen.  [Read more…] about Six Ways to Save Time in the Kitchen

Sanity Savers- Batch Cooking

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Let’s face it.  What mom has gobs of free time on her hands?  Since having children, the only free time I’ve ever had was when I was too sick to enjoy the time off.

When people are new to TF, one of the first questions they ask is how to reduce the amount of time they are spending in the kitchen.  Ferments, cooking and baking from scratch, making stock and cooking 2-3 meals a day plus snacks can eat up a lot of time if you let it.  Beginners feel overwhelmed by trying to squeeze more time out of an already busy day.  I normally give the same words of advice to everyone that asks:  [Read more…] about Sanity Savers- Batch Cooking