Two Day Meal Plan

Being the good Southern girl I am, I can cook me some pinto beans!  Now my family loves pintos!  A favorite meal for us is pintos and cornbread. 

And talk about frugal----2 pounds of dried pinto beans is less than $1.00!

I want to share with you how I can take my pintos and make two great meals for my family.

Pinto Beans

1 to 2 lbs of dried pinto beans

Ham bone or cooked chicken

water

Put dried pinto beans in a bowl and cover with 2 or more inches of water.  (It is suggested that you wash the beans first and get the floating beans out and any other bad beans you see.)  Soak the beans overnight.

The next morning, pour off water and wash beans if needed.  Pour soaked beans in crock pot.  This is where you can do some variations.  Traditionally, my folks will put in their beans a ham bone or ham fat.  I will sometimes do this when I have them.  Many times I use my canned yard chickens.  I will pour a whole quart of chicken into the soaked beans.  If you don't have either of these, put in a bouillon cube.  One cube for each pound of beans.

Once you pick your flavoring, cover your pintos with between 1 and 2 inches of water.  Cover your beans and set the crock pots on high of 4 to 8 hours or low for 10 or more hours.  Serve with homemade cornbread.

Now if you family is like mine, you will probably have some left over beans.  This is where the next meal comes in...

Refried Beans

Cooked pinto beans

Place cooked pinto beans in a sauce pan and heat.  As the beans heat, mash them up with a potato masher.  Serve hot.

How easy is that!!

But what good is refried beans without Spainish Rice...

Spainish Rice

2 T olive oil

2 T chopped onions

1 1/2 cups rice

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup chucky salsa

Heat oil in sauce pan and add onions.  Cook onions until light colored.  Add rice to onions and cook until the rice starts to turn brown.  Pour in chicken broth and salsa.  Bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Now nothing is better with refried beans and Spainish rice than homemade torillas....

Homemade Torillas
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 t  baking powder
2 t  salt
3/4 cup  shortening
3/4 cup  hot water

Mix together flours, baking powder, salt.  With a pastry cutter, cut in shortening until the mixture looks crumbly.  Add water or enough to make it look moist.

Knead your dough.  While kneading, gather all flour from side of bowl.  If the dough is still sticky, add a dusting of flour.  Once you have kneaded the dough for about 2 to 3 minutes, let the dough rest for up to an hour.

Take dough out and cut into 10 to 12 balls.  Lightly flour your rolling area and roll your torilla out to paper thin thickness.

Place each torilla on a heated cast iron skillet.  Cook each side for about 1 to 2 minutes.  Serve hot.

We make bean borittos with the beans and rice by adding sour cream, cheese and lettuce all wrapped in the warm torillas.  Sometimes we can have this for two meals.  It just depends on how much pintos we have.

The best part...

 both meals are less than $4.00! 

Share your families favorite frugal meal!!

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