Saturday Savings on Sunday

I'm a day late and a dollar short!

 

Yep, that's me!

 

 

I've never been a fan of beans except green beans, refried beans and baked beans,

 

BUT.....

 

I am learning to really like them!

 

My mom is an excellent cook and always put so much effort to make sure we had well balanced meals.  I really liked everything she made

 

EXCEPT

 

I can think of 4 things that I absolutely hated.

 

Navy Beans slow cooked

Liver and Onions

Potato Soup

and

Mexican Pie

 

When I came home from school and almost threw up from the smell of navy beans cooking or saw the disgusting looking red meat laid out on the counter I tried to either eat at a friends house or fall asleep before dinner.  I absolutely WOULD NOT eat those 3 meals.

The Mexican Pie just looked gross to me.

Hamburger, corn, black olives (which I hated back then too!) and other yucky stuff.

I remember stuffing bites of that under the table cloth and squishing it down.

By doing that I now realize that I was being as gross as the  Mexican Pie was.

Sorry Mom!

The potato soup was just nasty looking to me.

Mom makes hers with chopped potatoes, celery, onions, butter and lots of milk.

I hate white milk to drink and the potato soup looked like milk with things floating in it.

 

 

In life everything changes and so did my taste buds........

slowly,

but the did change quite a bit.

 

 

 

It all started when someone at the Dr.'s office I used to work at brought in chili for lunch one day.  They had chili beans in it and a thick sauce to the chili. 

I'd never liked chili before, but fell in love with this one.

So chili with chili beans became not only acceptable, but one of my favorite meals!

 

Then Earl ordered me a burrito and it came with rice and black beans on it.

I was really hungry so I ate it and it was so good!!

Now I put black beans in all my Mexican food.

 

When I went home to Kansas a couple of years ago my sister-in-law made ham and beans for dinner. I wanted to be polite so I tasted it.....

and much to my surprise it was delicious!!

So now during the winter I make ham and beans with beer bread every few weeks.

 

Well, we are so broke and last week I Googled "Recipes for low income people" and found lots of,

 

of course,

 

bean recipes.

 

I decided to go on and give it a go with a positive attitude so I tried

Black Bean Soup first and then Lentil Soup.

 

I googled a recipe and then adjusted it to the ingredients I had and it turned out SO GOOD!

 

I used 4 cans of black beans

sauted chopped carrots, celery, onion, and green pepper in olive oil

a can of diced tomatoes

a can of cream of mushroom soup

beef broth

and cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc....

 

After everything cooked for about 6 hours

I used the whizzer and made the soup lumpy, but smooth and creamy.

 

This soup was so good!!!

 

This isn't my photo, but this is how my soup looked.



 

 

 

Again, not my photo, but the general idea of how my Lentil soup looked.

 

 

So my Saturday Savings tip is to give beans a shot!

 

They are cheap and oh so yummy!!

 

 

I'm still not up to trying Navy Beans.....I think I was traumatized with those, but I'm sure enjoying other types of beans.