A good budget friendly food is beans. Any kind of beans that are dried are usually cheap. You can get 1 lb of beans for $1-$2 per pound. Sometimes less if you buy bigger quanities. There are some basic steps for making them.
1. Soak for a few hours(I do this during the day)
2. Before bedtime rinse beans
3. Put in crock pot
4. Add water till covers the beans
5. Add salt and spices to your preferance
6. Turn on low
7. Cook all night
8. In the morning(when I take kids to bus stop) turn off
9. Let cool till room temp
10. Put 2 cups of beans per freezer bag
11. Put in freezer
I do this to lots of differant beans for a few days that way I get it out of the way and have lots of beans to choose from whenever I want. Since I use only 1/2 lb of meat per meal, I throw in 2 cups of beans to add protein to our meals.
Here is an example of how much you could save
$1.69 1lb of dried black beans
Each pound makes about 10 cups
Thats about 17 cents per cup. Making it 34 cents (most cans have about 2 cups per can)
Average cost of canned beans is 79-$1 per can.
5 cans of beans for the same amount of buying 2 cans. I think I will make my own.
Not only is this a budget friendly meal, you dont have any extra added preservatives and what not. You can add no salt or spices so it will be no sodium.
Idea's for use
1.Chili
2.Black Bean soup
3. White bean and ham soup
4. add to any meal for protein
5. Mash and make refried beans
When I let mine cook all night, I get up early to get my girls off to school. Today I cooked white beans so I used them and added cut up ham lunch meat for them to take to school and eat. They just love bean and ham soup. Throw in some crackers and you have a great lunch. Since its fall now, they love warm food at lunch time. Super hot in the morning but cools just enough for them to eat at lunch time. This is why I cook them at night time. You certianly could cook them during the day and use them for dinner time. Its just easier for me because my husband dislikes the smell of beans.
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