Pinto Beans

Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot!

Who doesn't love a great pot of pinto beans?  They're cheap and easy, tasty, and oh so full of protein and healthy for you!

Oldest child is heading off to grad. school in the fall, and he will be cooking for himself.  Middle child will be living in an off campus apartment.  He will still be using the on campus meal plan, but he is working hard to learn how to cook cheap, easy, and healthy foods.

With that thought in mind, we made a pot of pinto beans the other day.  Not only are they filling, you can save the leftovers, mash them up and fry them to make refried beans, or you can use them to make fillings for burritos or enchiladas, (and freeze to eat later), or you can freeze just the beans and then add them to chili or just heat them up for a filling dinner on another day.

A thick, delicious bowl of pinto bean soup.

The night before, you are going to want to pick through the beans to make certain there aren't any rocks or small pieces of debris mixed in.  Rinse the beans thoroughly under running water and then place in a pan, covered with about 2 inches of water overnight.

The next morning, drain the beans, add more water to cover, and bring to a rolling boil.

Add the beans to your slow cooker, and set it on low.

To the pot, add:

*NOTE- this recipe is for TWO pounds of dried pinto beans.

One large, or two medium onions, diced

Two or three cloves of garlic, diced

2 tsp. chili powder

2 tsp. cumin

2 tsp. oregano

1 can of diced green chiles

1 or 2 cans of diced tomatoes

Cover, and cook on low for 8 hours.  Stir well before serving.  Serve as a soup.


Costs:
Canned Tomatoes: $0.55
Pinto Beans, 2 lbs. $1.89
Diced Green Chiles $0.50
Onion (produce stand) $1.00

Total:  $3.94

For the second night, we made enchiladas.

I used this homemade enchilada sauce recipe I found on Pinterest.  http://www.littlespicejar.com/homemade-red-enchilada-sauce/

We drained the liquid out of the beans, reserving all of the liquid.  The beans were smashed down, and then fried.  We used the leftover liquid from the pot to thin the beans.  (Can you believe a lot of recipes ask you to throw away that bean broth and just use plain water?  What a waste of that protein filled tasty broth!) My Mom and Grandma both used to fry their beans in lard... I'm not quite ready to go back to lard to fry my beans, even though it's REALLY good!

Put about 1/4 cup of beans down the center of a corn tortilla.

Roll it up, and place the enchilada, seam side down, in a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Pour the enchilada sauce over all.

If you don't have dairy allergies in your family, you can layer cheese over top of it all.

I served this with a spinach, berry, and red onion salad from ingredients I picked up at one of the local produce stands.

Costs:
Corn Tortillas: $1.50
(but I didn't use all of the tortillas.  The other half of them will be used in another meal.)
Tomato Sauce: $0.49.
1 jar chipotle peppers: $1.50
Veggie Broth: (I make my own, so????  I really don't know how much this would cost. I pulled a couple of broth cubes out of the freezer for this.)
Spinach and other goodies from the produce stand: $3.50

Unfortunately, we didn't have any leftovers for a third night of beans.  Who would have thunk it?  2 pounds of beans served 5 people 2 very decent meals.  (Oldest son ate 4 bowls of bean soup, husband ate 3.  I have some very big eaters in my family!)

If you're tracking the costs, we got 2 meals for 5 people for a little over $11.  If you're looking at the number of servings, we had 20 servings for $10.93.  That comes out to $0.55 a serving.

I know, making the enchilada sauce from scratch took a little extra time.  So did the veggie broth.  However, I am able to control the sodium, sugar, and other additives in these foods.  So to me - it's well worth my time.  (Enchilada Sauce and Broth both can hide gluten and msg, both allergens for our family.)