Using Your Food Storage- Use Beans Instead of Oil In Your Cooking

January 21, 2011 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

Remember the black beans I made in my pressure cooker last week?


Well today is your lucky day because you're going to find out what I made them for. It is one of my favorite secrets to making my food more nutritious.

Have you ever heard of substituting the oil in your recipes with applesauce? My mom does that and it's really good. A lot of people use this method for baked goods like cakes, brownies and quickbreads.

I've found that you can do the same thing with pureed beans too except that it adds even more nutrients than applesauce.

Beans are amazing
In 1 cup of black beans, there are 227 calories,  .93 grams of fat, 15.24 grams of protein, and 15 grams of fiber.

Compare that to vegetable oil.

1 cup of vegetable oil has 1,927 calories! 218 grams of fat, 0 protein and 0 fiber.

Isn't it incredible what exchanging one little ingredient can do? The first time I used beans instead of oil I was sold.

 I used great northern beans (white) because I was making white cupcakes for my family's 4th of July party. Every single cupcake was devoured! My whole extended family was there and I think I had every single one of them come up and tell me how good my cupcakes were. I never told them that I put beans in them. Ignorance is bliss especially for little kids.

Substituting beans for oil is really easy because you can trade out the ingredients 1 for 1. The measurements are the same. You want to match the color of the beans to what you are cooking. I'm making brownies today so I'm using black beans.

Directions
1.

Puree your beans in a blender. I measure out a little less than double the amount of what the recipe calls for because the beans condense down quite a bit when pureed. 

I have this handy mini blender that I use to makes single portion shakes or smoothies. Works great for this too. Put your beans in and add water until it almost covers the top of the beans to help them puree.

2.
Your beans should form a paste and look like this. 

3. Add bean puree to your recipe and cook as usual. You cannot taste the beans. Promise.



No one will ever know the difference. But you will feel good knowing your family is getting a little extra protein and fiber with a ton less fat. Go ahead and let them have that second brownie.

Good luck! Let me know what you think when you try it.

Tip: If you don't have the time or inclination to cook up your own dried beans first, you can use canned beans. Drain and rinse first then add back in new water to control the gas factor.

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Creating an Emergency Fund

January 20, 2011 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

How many times have we been counseled to have a "rainy day fund'? How many of us have done it? An emergency fund is just that. For emergencies. Unplanned expenses come up all the time. It doesn't have to be a huge event like losing your job but it can be. Most likely it's something smaller but big enough to not fit into your planned budget. 

I think this is one thing that is so easy to put off but also one of the easiest things to complete once you get started. It's not overwhelming and time intensive like saving and planning for retirement or paying off your house. 

Yesterday while I was driving, I pulled up to a stop light and my power steering went out. Just like that, no warning whatsoever. So today my car is in the shop getting fixed and you can bet that there is going to be a hefty bill to come back with it. Now, I don't like spending money or seeing my savings account go down but I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to worry about where this money is coming from. I can't imagine the stress that I would be feeling if my husband and I were living paycheck to paycheck and didn't have an emergency fund in place. 

In the book Financial Peace Revisited, Dave Ramsey lists 7 baby-steps to follow in order to gain financial peace. The first baby-step is to build an emergency fund of 1000 dollars. That may sound stressful but you would be surprised at how quickly that will add up when you save a little here and a little there. And seeing your account balance go up will start to motivate you even further to be creative in finding ways to save more and more.

Let this be the year we control our finances! Good luck building or replenishing your emergency fund as you need it.

I've listed some financial resources below but what are some creative ways you've found to save when you needed to build up a cash reserve?

Resources: 

This is an awesome and short read about family finances. If you haven't read it yet, you should. You can get a pamphlet or download it for free here.










I love this book and can't say enough good about it. Dave Ramsey rocks! 

He's lived through it all and walks you through everything you can think of on the road to financial peace. Whether it's piles of debt, dealing with creditors or bankruptcy or just getting a plan, he has solutions for them all. Check it out from your local library if you need to. His website has some great tips and information too.

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Using Your Food Storage- Homemade Refried Beans

January 17, 2011 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

This year I have a goal to eat beans at least once a week. I have one recipe that my mom calls my Black Bean Concoction that I like a lot but I want to start rotating through my pinto beans in storage too. The first thing that came to mind was refried beans. I love making burritos at home and usually just use canned refried beans but anything homemade is definitely better than the canned version.

I think the reason most people use canned beans instead of cook dried beans is the time involved. If you want to cook dried beans from a bag, you need to soak them for 8-12 hours over-night. Then when you are actually ready to heat them up, they still need half the day to cook! Sorry, but for me, that does not sound worth it. I'm not going to slave over the stove for hours just for a side-dish. So imagine my delight when I found I could cook beans in my pressure cooker in 35 minutes! No presoaking required. And what makes it even better is that beans freeze really well. You can just cook up a big batch, divide and freeze into smaller portions. Then when you want some, pull out a bag in your freezer and voila! As easy as the canned version but much tastier.

Ingredients
1 lb dry pinto beans or 1/2 lb dry pinto beans and 1/2 lb black beans
8 cups water (or substitute a can of chicken broth for the same amount of water for extra flavor)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2  tsp chili powder 
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
4 1/2 tsp oil (2 tsp of oil per cup of beans)


Directions
1.


Rinse and sort through beans and pick out any broken, shriveled beans or rocks/ pieces of dirt. You can soak them overnight if you want. It will reduce the amount of cooking time to 25 min instead of 35. But this is the beauty of the pressure cooker. You don't have to soak the beans!


2.


Heat oil in your pressure cooker. If you have an electric one, put it to the Saute option. If not, just heat it on the stove top. You need 4 1/2 tsp of oil. Oil is a necessary ingredient in pressure cooking beans because it helps prevent them from foaming and blocking your vent.


If you want your beans really authentic you should use lard for your oil. That is what real refried beans are made with. I happened to have some lard from some tortillas I made so I used half lard and half...




Bacon grease. 


Are you grossed out? You shouldn't be. Bacon grease is a little flavoring trick my mom taught me. She would save just a little grease from bacon she cooked and use it to flavor our eggs when she made them sunny-side up. It is so good. You can't even taste bacon really, just a hint of something yummy. 


Sorry it's so easy to get sidetracked. Anyway, bacon grease just adds more depth of flavor to the beans and makes them taste that much better.


3.


Saute your onions and garlic in the pressure cooker until the onions are translucent. 


4.



Add spices. Did you notice there is no salt? You do not want to add salt when you are pressure cooking,  you add it after.


5.


Add beans- it's best to only cook 1 lb at a time or depending on the size of your pressure cooker to never fill it more than 1/3 full.


6.


Add water and chicken broth. I just dump my can of chicken broth into a 2 cup measurer and add water to fill since there isn't enough broth to make 2 cups.


7. 


Now just twist on the lid and make sure your pressure release knob is in place.


8.


Select High Pressure and 35 minutes and hit start. The machine will bring it to pressure then start the cooking time by itself. You don't need to do anything. Isn't technology amazing?


9. 

When the time is up, the pressure cooker will beep at you. You have 2 options when you pressure cook. A quick release method- you release all the pressure manually or natural pressure release- you wait for the temperature to drop normally and thereby dropping the pressure too. The type of food dictates which method you use. Beans call for the natural pressure release. Just wait until the pressure indicator drops. That usually takes 20-30 minutes. 


10. 
Drain your beans and use a potato masher to mash your beans up. You may want to reserve some of the liquid to add back it if you want them a little runnier. 

11.

This is when you add in your salt. You'll want to do it to taste and probably more than you think. I used almost 1/2 Tbls. Refried beans are supposed to be salty, it's one of the things that make them taste good.

Now scoop these delicious, creamy refried beans into a bowl. They are 1000 times better than store-bought beans and definitely good enough to eat plain or with cheese on top. But if you can wait, they taste great in burritos and anything else you can think of too. 

I hope you like them. My family sure did!

TIP: Freeze the left-overs into meal sized portions to use later. Beans hold up to freezing really well.

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