Deciding to buy dried beans or canned beans is an issue of space and expense. Dried beans will a little more than double their volume when cooked. So storage is about one third the space for the same nutrition. Expense is about 60 cents a pound for dried beans (6 cups cooked or 12 servings). Canned beans cost about 60 cents for less than three servings in a can. So the decision is between dried at 5 cents a serving and canned at 20 cents a serving. The convenience of canned beans is retained when a large quantity is cooked and then frozen plain in serving portions. I have loved having red, black and white beans all in the freezer these last 6 weeks. The freezer is almost as full as it was at the beginning of our 90 day journey because I have used meat but added beans. The beans came in handy for dinner tonight.
Lunch: Macaroni and cheese (1 pound box of noodles cooked an drained, 1/3 pound of Velveeta cheese, 14 cup margarine with 1/2 tsp salt)
Snack: Snickerdoodle cookies and granola bars from the freezer
Dinner: We came in at 4:50 pm after running errands. I put water on to boil, added beef bullion, 3 cans of beef stew meat, 3 cups of diced tomatoes, and 1 quart on frozen black beans. While waiting for the soup to come to a boil, I made flat bread with garlic added. (Recipe in Recipes post) Within 25 minutes, dinner was ready from start to finish. The family found the soup simple, savory and "good."
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