Bean of the week club

So for those of you who have been around my husband for more than 5 minutes lately you can tell we are really into Dave Ramsey right now. We have always had a budget and tracked it, but we haven't always tried super hard to stay within it's confines. Well little baby on the way has changed that.

Thankfully we agree on most areas of the budget, but our grocery budget has been a point of contention. Before we got married Daniel spent far less on groceries, but he also ate lots of frozen cardboard pizzas. Blah! SO in comes Elizabeth with her exotic tastes and love of heirloom and organic foods. Yeah real budget blower. This year I've been trying really hard to still buy healthy but still stay in the budget. We've been eating lots of potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and lettuce (most of the time organic). I will occasionally throw in the more expensive veggies. I recently discovered the secret to cooking great cabbage, like my granny can. It's generous amounts of butter and not overcooking. I shop the organic meat and dairy case for clearance items. I get wonderful fresh eggs locally for a great price. I bake our own bread, can jam when we have free fruit. And my dear husband still thinks we spend to much. So I asked him what he would like to change about our diet to bring the money spent down.

So Daniel told me about this article he read about some guy that ate healthy on a low budget. His secret- stretching the meat out with grains and legumes. I'm not sure how much dairy he ate, but I'm not giving up my organic dairy yet. So I told him I'd try to start cooking more beans if he'd eat them. And Daniel has been very good natured about it all, as he usually is. Last week I made pork & bean stew, with green bell peppers, sweet potatoes, onions, christmas lima & pinto beans, nice hunks of pork, and a little yummy organic pepperoni to spice it up. The recipe came from the Joy of Cooking. We have one more serving, but I did put a bunch up in the freezer. Now that my freezer is back to normal function I can start stockpiling meals. It is so nice when I don't feel like cooking.

I'm really glad that Daniel has pushed me to cook more legumes, I really like them. I guess I haven't been cooking them out of laziness. I'll get Daniel to take a pic of our bean of the week today, a favorite Caribbean black bean stew and brown rice.