Or the beans and rice revamp

There is no way I could do my current diet without rice and beans. All told, I eat on about $7/day, which means it really helps when my lunches can cost me about $1. Organic dry beans cost about $2/pound and organic rice $1.50 per pound. A pound of each (they EXPAND. Think mutant Godzilla growth) easily gets me through a week. Thus, with condiments (the expensive part) about a $1/day.

These runs fueled by beans and rice!

This is by no means a sacrifice in nutrition. Rice and beans together form a complete protein, and beans are considered a superfood. Why? Low in fat and yet high in protein and soluble fiber, these little guys are good for heart health, blood sugar, and reduce your risks of cancer due to high levels of antioxidants. Furthermore, thanks to some inspiration, I’ve experienced a rice and bean revamp/renaissance. I’ve created two new incredibly easy and delicious recipes in the past two weeks! Therefore, I just had to write all about it.

What are your favorite ways to eat rice and beans?

Squats fueled by rice and beans too.

For tips and tricks on how to cook rice and beans from scratch, try this wonderful article by money crashers. My own favorite tip is to get a rice cooker. It makes non instant rice a breeze, and saves me tons of time. You can find a rice cooker at Goodwill for $5 or less. Make sure it has a delay timer on it! I also use the rice cooker in crock pot mode in order to cook my beans. I do all of this on a Sunday, when I’m at home, and I can pull the items out of the rice cooker as soon as they are done. In a pinch, if pressed for time, I buy a can of beans and put the rice cooker on a delay timer right before I go to bed. When I wake up, the rice is ready to go! I just mix the beans in, whatever spices I want, and my lunches for the week are made.

If you’re like me and food goes bad the minute you touch it, I suggest freezing your lunches. I only keep about two days’ worth of beans and rice in the fridge. The rest is in individual containers in the freezer, ready to go when I need them.

For all the below recipes, I use 1 cup dried rice and 1 cup black beans or other beans. I cook each normally, then mix together with the spices.

Pad Thai Rice and Beans with Purple Cabbage

Added Ingredients: Two recipes homemade pad thai sauce, one half a purple cabbage shredded, 3 spring onions.

Spicy Cilantro Rice and Beans

Added Ingredients: 1 cup chopped cilantro and siracha to taste

Smokey Paprika Lime Rice and Beans

Added ingredients: Juice of 1 lime, 1 can organic sweet corn, 2 tablespoons paprika

Spicy Garlic Rice and Beans (or lentils!)

Added ingredients: 4 cloves garlic minced, and cooked in oil until brown. Saute the rice in this, mix with beans and add red pepper to taste

Seriously. Bad picture, great taste!

(And here is a recipe I want to try!!!) Coconut Rice and Black Beans

This Week In Updates: Long days and nights

Yeah, so flying my ass off this week. Culminated in a 12 hour two flight day with a check ride. I passed, but I had to fight for the pass so it didn’t really feel like it. Given the lack of sleep, and the lack of direction as to what people wanted (I got yelled at for checking too many things in the wrong order) I felt proud of my performance. However, when you’re elevator spends lots of time telling you your preflight was terrible, it makes you feel pretty bad. It was a good thing I knocked my flight component out of the park, or perhaps he wouldn’t have passed me even though I did everything right, just not how he would have done it. Sigh.

But Jesse has arrived! And he is getting all settled in. He is the proud owner of a new bike, a crockpot, and a yogurt maker, which I get to try and use too. We made paleo pancakes this weekend, and I burned some paleo chocolate chip cookies. My oven runs pretty hot. Still edible though. I took his to see Zootopia, which has now replaced Ironman as BEST MOVIE EVER. Trust me. Go see it.