The "let's cook a nutritious, balanced meal for dinner on a low budget" thread...share your recipes.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Here's what I'm making tonight:

1). "Sunny Select" (Lucky Market house brand) pink beans.

Soaked in water overnight. The secret to cooking dried beans is largely in the water. I use reverse-osmosis purified water from the local water store. Hard water can toughen beans or affect cooking time.

I soaked 4 ounces of beans overnight, and I'm cooking them for 2 hours in 2 cups of water with 1 slice of center-cut thick bacon, chopped, added to the water. At the end of the cooking time I'll add 1/4 teaspoon salt (adding it in advance also toughens the beans) and fresh ground pepper for seasoning.

2). Rice, cooked in the electric rice cooker.

I hate brown rice. Sorry. I know it's "better for you," etc. etc. etc., but no matter how many different ways I've tried to cook it, I still hate it. I use long grain white rice. I rinse it in a strainer and put it in my National electric rice cooker with Swanson Cooking Stock (tonight I'm using beef) for the liquid. When it's finished I'll add a little "Shedd's Spread Country Crock" margarine.

3). Bagged baby spinach, steamed.

Filling, cheap, and (reasonably) good for you, with the slice of bacon being the only concession, but some of that goes away when the cooking water for the beans is drained.

:toast:

[XemaSab]

1. Papas Mexicanas

Mandatory:

1 large baked potato

Optional:

Salsa
Hot sauce
Cheese
Olives
Chiles
Soyrizo/chorizo
Sour cream
Green onions
Whatever else sounds good

:9

On edit: Avocado, fresh tomato, onions.... :9

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. A baked potato is always an excellent base...

:toast:

[jobycom]

5. Good thing about that is you can stir-fry it the next day.

If you've got leftover baked potatoes, you can chop them up and wok them and add your favorite baked-potato toppings, for a slightly different taste and texture.

And beans are great over baked potatoes, or over stir-fried potatoes the next day.

[gblady]

17. thanks for this....

I have these ingredients and I was just mulling over how to fix them...
this is a great suggestion...

[jobycom]

3. I use red beans, but otherwise,

that's about what I was going to recommend. Soak them overnight (I use Brita-filtered water,and you are right, the water makes a big difference), throw out the water they soaked in, rinse them, then put them in a large, heavy pot (or a crockpot) with an onion and eight cloves of garlic (chopped), and about a tablespoon of some type of fat. I'm vegetarian, so I add Earth Balance, but you can use butter or lard if you want, or add salt pork, pickled pork, or sausage. The fat adds a slight creamy texture, and prevents gas after eating. Add a few spices if spices move you, especially a bay leaf or some cayenne. I used to spice it up, but right now I like it the old fashioned New Orleans way, which is very basic. Cook for three hours, until the beans are soft. If you like firmer beans, cook about an hour and a half, then scoop out a bean and blow on it. If the skin comes off, it's ready. If not, try again in fifteen minutes. Just before done, add salt and pepper (adding salt too early toughens the beans and adds to the gasiness).

Serve over brown rice with spinach on the side (I use frozen, don't know why). Make some cornbread if you've got the inclination. Good old-fashioned New Orleans dinner.

If you use white rice, you may as well just pour it over sugar or white bread. It has little nutrition left. But your call.

---------

Or, use large lima beans instead of red beans. Otherwise the same, with a little shorter cooking time. Different beans have such different flavors you add just about any kind, or even mix them, but red beans (kidney) and white beans (lima) are the ones I prefer.

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Another quick and nutritious (enough) meal is whole wheat spaghetti with a pasta sauce. Make your own, or buy jarred sauce without HFCS or added sugar. Sautee or steam whatever vegetable the grocery had at a killer price last time (squash, zuchinni, carrots).

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Last one: Cabbage, potatoes, and carrots. Buy the 5 lber bags for about three bucks. Cabbage and carrots are almost always cheap. You can make mashed potatoes (chop with skins, boil for fifteen or twenty minutes, mash, add liquid of your choice--milk, soymilk, potato water from the boiling, and season with butter, salt, pepper, a dab of ranch dressing, or whatever you prefer) or just quarter them and roast them for twenty minutes, with salt and pepper and garlic or whatever you like. Chop the carrots, sautee for a couple of minutes, then add water to the pan, cook until tender. Sautee the cabbage--I use a wok pan, slice the cabbage and then cut it lengthwise once, and toss it in the pan. When it's tender but still crisp, I turn off the heat, add butter or Earth Balance, and salt and pepper. Even my kids like that. Sometimes I serve with a can of Bush's Vegetarian beans or any other leftover beans I've got, sometimes not. This is an easy dinner, because you can stagger it well. The potatoes can be cooking while you prepare the carrots and cabbage, so you can have all ready at about the same time, in about half an hour start to finish.

just a few ideas.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. If I could find a way to cook brown rice that made it taste like something other than cardboard...

...I'd use brown rice. I've tried every trick in the book. The thing I like about the electric rice cooker is that you can add more liquid and it will cook until it's absorbed without burning. But even with that, I've had no luck.

[jobycom]

10. I just cook it. Even when I screw up, it tastes better than white rice to me.

Or I should say, it has flavor, whereas white rice doesn't.

I take it you are using long grain, or at least medium grain? Short grain is supposed to be more sticky. I either just cook it in a rice cooker (I have a Tiger with fuzzy logic, so it's got a brown rice setting) or in a pot. I used to have a more basic rice cooker with just an On and a Warm setting, but it wasn't the best for brown rice.

On the stove, I boil two and a quarter cups water with a little oil, add one cup rice, stir once, cover and reduce heat, simmer for forty minutes (don't open the lid). After forty minutes I remove it from the heat, never removing the lid, and let it steam for twenty minutes. Then I remove the lid and fluff it. The grains should be fluffy and seperate.

Since I'm sure you've run across that recipe before, all I can say is you just may not like the taste of brown rice. :)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. You may be right...

...no matter what I use for liquid or spice, all I taste is that same, identical taste of the bran layer.

My mom ran hot and cold when it came to her cooking...she was the best or the worst, no middle ground.

The only rice I ever ate until I moved out on my own was Minute Rice. The only steaks we ever ate were cubed steaks. She'd fry the cube steaks in the pan, take them out, and re-heat the Minute Rice so that it would pick up the browned bits and meat flavor from the cooked steaks. We'd have that with some kind of vegetable like canned green beans.

As an adult (purely out of nostalgia) I'll buy the occasional box of Minute Rice. It never seems to taste as good as I remember it tasting when I was a kid. I was at the market today and bought a 2 lb. bag of Mahatama long grain white rice, which is my go-to brand.

:toast:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

13. Do you have a Trader Joes near you?

They sell organic brown rice in microwavable steam pouches that come out perfect. Three decent size pouches to a box.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

15. I buy the organic basmati rice there...

...I'll have to check out your suggestion.

:toast:

[gblady]

16. have you tried....

brown basmati rice....
sweet and delicious!

[yellowdogintexas]

21. I just discovered brown basmati rice. I love it. nt

[AwakeAtLast]

4. Crosspost this to C & B Group

They have LOTS of great ideas!

[Fran Kubelik]

6. Chicken jambalaya

It's one recipe where you can use brown rice and really not notice the difference, and if you get your chicken on sale it can be cheap too.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Bacon, red onion, and kale stir fry

baby spinach, mandarin orange& avocado salad, with sunflower seeds.

olive oil & balsamic vinegar dressing.

white rice,

and oven baked chicken drumsticks.

Don't have the exact recipes, but the ingredients are pretty much covered in the description.

Suprisignly not that expensive.

[begin_within]

9. Basmati rice cooked with curry powder in the water, and served in a bowl

steamed vegetables placed on top of the rice. To the side, the protein of your choice: beans, falafel, tofu, nuts, cheese, or meat if you're a meat eater. No sauce really necessary, just seasoning salt. Iced tea to drink.

[eyesroll]

11. Mujadarah

1 part green French lentils
1 part rice (I use brown basmati; use whatever long grain you've got)
4 parts chicken or vegetable broth or water
A sprinkle of cumin

Cook together in the rice cooker or on the stove until the water is absorbed and everything's tender.

Meanwhile, slice thinly and caramelize a boatload of onions. Sprinkle the onions with a small amount of cinnamon at the very end if you want.

Serve the rice/lentil mix with some onions and a spoonful of plain yogurt on top.

[LynzM]

12. This doesn't have a name yet...

You need:

Rice (I use a blend of 7 brown rices), already cooked
Black beans, 1 can, rinsed/drained
Corn, 1 can, rinsed/drained
Garlic
Onion
Butter
Some kinda veggies - I tend to use greens - bok choy, squash, spinach, whatever appeals to you
A little grated cheese, I usually use cheddar

In one frying pain, soften some garlic and onion in butter, add rice, beans, and corn, and allow to heat through.
In second frying pan, fry/steam veggies til slightly soft with some butter/salt/pepper/whatever ya like for seasonings.

Layer veggies on top of rice mix in bowl, top with grated cheese, and allow to melt.

Mmmm-hmmm.

[Kali]

14. if you want to save a little more, cook more beans,

then refrigerate or freeze leftovers for more meals.

Make your own stock - cheaper and SO much better tasting.

Try using a small portion of brown rice - start it first and cook for however much longer the i nstructions indicate then add the white rice. Even better is to mix it in a pilaf or other dish that has flavors beyond plain rice. You can begin to use more as you get used to it. I'm with you some dishes just have to have white rice only, but you can use brown in other recipes.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

20. I've started saving the steaming liquid from vegetables for cooking...

...I have a great rice cooker that does double-duty as a steamer. I steam the vegetables and save the water to either mix with stock or use by itself when I cook rice. I made homemade marinara sauce the other day and added dried porcini mushrooms. To reconstitute them, I add them to a cup of boiling water. Then they sit in the pan with the lid on for 15 to 20 minutes. I strain the liquid through cheesecloth (dried porcini mushrooms can have a lot of grit) and that gives me a rich mushroom stock to use the next day.

The other good thing about these little touches is that they add flavor without salt.

I like your idea about mixing the white with brown...I might do that the next time I make fried rice. When you add eggs and vegetables, it's not the same as sitting down to a plain serving of brown rice.

:toast:

[Arugula Latte]

19. Eggs are cheap, tasty, versatile protein

Scramble eggs and melt some cheese over them. Crisp up a tortilla in a hot pan and scoop eggs into it. Top with lots of fresh salsa. Roll up burrito style. (This obviously lends itself to endless variations.)

[yellowdogintexas]

22. I have a couple of favorites

curried lentils:

1 cup lentils, any kind but the brown are the cheapest
2 cups water
small onion chopped
couple of tomatoes or a can of diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
cayenne to your taste. salt and pepper

cook until lentils are soft

couple or 3 cloves garlic
butter or oil, at least 1/4 cup
cook the garlic in the oil or butter. do not let the garlic get brown or crispy it will be bitter.

lots of nice hot rice (white or brown your choice)

serve the lentils over the rice and spoon the garlic butter on top

Now you can jazz this up with some additions of celery or zuchinni diced, and some cilantro, or fresh chiles. Toast some mustard and coriander seeds lightly and add to the lentils. Use curry powder instead of the combo listed above. Your choice.

This is cheap filling and healthy

Quick chicken tortilla soup

1 large chicken breast, or whatever chicken you have.
1 can chicken broth, or your own homemade stock
can of diced tomatoes
add'l water as needed
onion
garlic
salt
pepper
1 fresh jalapeno, minced

other veg as desired (I put a zucchini in mine tonight)
frozen corn, about a cup
cilantro
lime juice if you have some
chili powder and cumin to taste

I had a big old leftover chicken breast already cooked tonight but I have made this with chicken thighs too.

So cook the chicken a bit in the water, then add the rest of the liquids and seasonings. Cook about 15 minutes then add other veg if you are using any, then after the veg are tender, add the frozen corn, cilantro and lime juice.

I had this with some Weight Watchers shredded cheese and WW multigrain chips tonight and it was quite tasty.


Taco Soup

1/2 pound ground meat..beef, chicken, turkey
1 pk each taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix (I use store brands)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can diced green chiles, (hot or mild, your choice)
medium onion, diced
garlic..2 cloves

1 can broth of a complementary flavor to your meat
3 cups water or so.

brown meat, add onion and garlic, saute then add the two mixes, and cook a few minutes more. Then add the rest of the ingredients.

You can stretch this by adding a can or two of beans (rinsed and drained) and some frozen corn. Cilantro and lime juice will brighten the taste.

If I think of some more, I will add them

[av8rdave]

23. Fresh asparagus

Spread the spears on a cookie sheet. Bake in 350 degree oven for 8 minutes. Dribble fresh honey on them, then bake another minute.

Easy and fantastic.