Drunken Beans

First, I'm sorry, but I don't have a picture for this recipe. I wish I did because holy moley it was awesome. I had off last Thursday which meant I wanted to stay up late Wednesday night. I had some left over dried beans in my cabinet that I wanted to slow cook somehow, so when I got in, I began to soak them, roughly 1 c black and 1.5 c of garbanzo. After a movie and a glass of wine or two, I started to look up recipes for slow cooking the beans. I knew the two didn't exactly go together and I was tired of my usual beans and rice curry, so I wandered to my kitchen and had my own my drunk kitchen experience, only less cute and funny, more cutting my finger with a knife while chopping an onion.

First, my beans had not quite soaked the full four hours but I thought (decided) they were done enough. I found a saucepan that was too small, rinsed the beans thoroughly and boiled them for a few minutes. Really that was all I could do because it was too full and my water kept overflowing onto the burner. I got a majority of my how to cook dried bean information here but it was 2am and I didn't feel like reading all that. I knew that boiling them is most important for dangerous kidney beans but to be on the safe side, I boiled them first on high then on low for about 5 minutes. While this happened, I took out the crock pot and in it added chopped green pepper, onion, garlic scapes (I lacked garlic), 1 28oz can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of tomato paste, and the beans (rinsed again once they finished boiling. Supposed to make you less gassy, fyi). I also added a little of the beer that I was drinking. Anyways, I covered the lid and cooked on low. You apparently aren't supposed to add salt to beans when you are first cooking them because it can make them absorb liquid less.

I woke up around 10 to a house that smelled like tomato and garlic. I went to check on my bean mess expecting the worse but they looked beautiful and I felt like I was a goodfella making the best tomato sauce, only less stirring and more looking for helicopters. It was still a little wet (I'm not blaming the beer) so I added a small can of organic tomato sauce (maybe it was puree?) and seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, a little red pepper flakes and just a few shakes of cayenne. I covered and let it cook on low until around 2 when I added basil, cilantro and just a touch of thyme from my garden, then turned it off but left the lid on so it could marry and cool slowly.

This was beyond amazing. My goodness. It was warm and happy and comforting like spaghetti without being heavy like pasta. The garlic scapes gave it a mild garlic flavor and I like them, mainly for how they look but I think next time I'll use regular garlic. I love garlic too much. But I can see how this can be varied. Definitely not a regular meal with it being so hot out but for this past week, and really for the whole crockpot (equaled for me 7 meals) coming in at under $7, I'm super happy with it. I think next time I'll add mushrooms though.

How does your garden grow

Answer? Pretty darn okay! I sometimes get over excited and pluck tomatoes too early, but here are some that ripened on my windowsill and tasted amazing.

I need to go get something for my cucumbers to climb on because they are currently reaching for anything they can, which often means choking my basil and cilantro. The thyme and rosemary are flourishing. My mine started off strong and has been suffering the past couple of days, so I trimmed back some of the branches and see if that'll help it. The other night the roommate and I made dinner that consisted of stirfry vegetables, vegan taco meat, and English chips she deep fried. I used some cilantro from my garden for the squash/zucchini/onion/pepper combo and it was pretty awesome.

Other than that, life is...life. I am working full time at the store. I just finished my first grad level class and although it just about killed me, I'm done for the summer. Up next, the praxis! For now though, I'm just focusing on having fun which I am. And getting back into running/being more active for summer. I'm 10lbs shy of a healthy bmi reading and losing 100lbs and I'd like to hit that by the end of August which I feel like I can do. We'll see. I totally won't get there eating deep fried chips/vegan taco meat, but splurging every now and again is okay.

Cooking on a budget!

I'll stop posting pictures of her when she stops being cute

I'm finally all unpacked and LOVING it here. New roommate is pretty awesome. The friends I'm making at work are pretty awesome. Being less than 15 min from school and less than 20 from work is the most awesome. Life is good.

What I am finding though is eating well on a budget is super tough. In April, I paid the security deposit for this place, rent to nasty people that I didn't live with, then moved home and paid for gas to commute from waldorf to baltimore every day. Needless to say, finances are a little tight but now that May is here and my commuting costs have cut drastically, I'm hoping it'll all balance out soon. In the meantime, I'm finding ways to eat cheaply

but not have it be packaged $1 soups (although don't get me wrong, I still eat those often).

I work for a grocery store, so I get a discount, but paying attention to our sale prices mean extra savings for me. And using coupons. And using/stretching everything in your fridge/pantry. I did that today with this awesome and filling lunch: roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli.

Bbq sauce goes with everything. EVERYTHING.

We had a sale on Japanese sweet potatoes which became my new favorite thing. I had a small one left that I cut up, sprinkled with salt and cumin and roasted with left over frozen broccoli cuts. Seriously, if you haven't tried Japanese sweet potatoes, go get them before they go out of season. They are amazing. Total cost of lunch: $1.25 for the sweet potato and $.75 for the broccoli. More than the prepackaged soups but definitely more nutritious and will hold me over longer.

New home

Just wanted to say that we are in the process of moving and getting everything settled but doing well! Extremely happy so far! This place has such happy positive energy. And by we, I of course mean Whitney and myself.

Doesn't she look comfortable?

Just wanted to say

Mandy is pretty awesome. That is all.

Big Pot O' Soup

So as I said yesterday, I had a day off which was a wonderful surprise. I was feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to put everything I had left over into a crockpot for a soup. The above pot has a japanese sweet potato, half a bunch of kale, carrots, some white beans, tomatoes, an onion, garlic, vegetable broth, cumin, salt, pepper, cayenne, and because I love it and saw a can while getting oil for my car at target, pumpkin. It was awesome. Savory, warm, comfortable and hearty. Plus the cumin added this Indian spin I wasn't expecting.

The other thing I want to mention is this: Japanese sweet potatoes. HOLYCRAP. They look like a giant red potato but are sweet and need nothing when you make them. I am not a sweet potato fan typically but these are outstanding. Bake and add a little salt and you are good to go. I am thinking about making a root vegetable mash with vegan butter next week and will probably use them with parsnips and turnips if I can find good parsnips.

Kale chips

I'm not feeling well today, I think because I've just burned myself out a bit. Between work, moving and the semester approaching an end, I haven't had a day off. Until today! I slept 14hrs last night and just taking it easy, giving my body a chance to recover and prepare for an insanely busy week/weekend ahead.

For the next two weeks I'm in Waldorf at my parents' house because my living situation turned sour. Or rather, a "friend" that people talked about being a bad person and I ignored because we seemed to have fun together turned out to be a horribly disgusting person, so I'm in Waldorf until my lease at a super cute new place in Brooklyn Park starts on May 1st. Seriously, the place is adorbs and I can't wait. Anyways, so I'm in Waldorf and right now it works out because my family is on vacation for the week, so I can watch the place while they're gone. I say all this because as they were leaving, I noticed my mom had a huge bunch of kale in the fridge that she never ate. Since she was leaving, I asked if I could have it because I have been DYING to try kale chips.

Holy.

Crap.

These things are amazing. And super easy. I was never a sweet tooth person, always preferred salty, and these did me in. I made a baking sheet full and that was only 1/3 of the bunch. The other 2/3 is for the next post.

But yeah, super easy and awesome as a lazy day off, staying in bed lunch. The pictures do not do it justice!

Kale Chips

Kale

salt

garlic powder

2tsp olive oil or cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375. Break off kale from stems to bite size pieces and place in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil, then add salt and garlic powder to taste. Bake for 10-15min, checking for the edges to be brown and the kale to be crisp. Enjoy!