Rice and Beans - Time and Money Saving Lunch

Lunch for the week prepared on Sunday. Time and money saved.

Buying lunch while you are at work is a huge money suck, not to mention that the food is usually over-priced for the quality that you get.  For our first week in Pittsburgh, I did a great job of making salads the night before work and was extremely healthy.  That quickly turned into whatever leftovers we had in the fridge. And that quickly turned into scrambling in the morning to find something to bring with me.  Not the ideal situation to eat healthy and avoid eating crappy food, plus I would end up "supplementing" my lunch at the cafeteria.

To combat this, we started making a large batch of rice on Sunday that could be taken for  lunch every day of the week. What's that you say? "I want something interesting and rice is boring?"  There my friend, you are wrong.

We add the basics to the rice and then spice it up throughout the week.  Here is our basic recipe:

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked brown rice (or white - brown has more fiber and is a little heartier)

1 can sweet corn - drained

1 can chick peas (or black beans)

1 cup chopped jalapenos

1 cup choppen onion (red, white, whatever)

1.5 cups cooked chicken (roasted*, sauteed, whatever)

Seasonings

Recipe:

Put the beans in a small pot over low heat and cover.  Let them cook slow and low.

Heat up some olive oil in a LARGE pan - we use a wok like thingy.  

Throw in the onions, cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add jalapenos and corn.  Add seasonings such as garlic, salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano; cook for 2-3 minutes.

Drain the beans of their liquid.

Add chicken, rice, and beans to the vegetables - mix thoroughly.

Season as needed.

Multiple Colors = Multiple Flavors = Happy Tastebuds

*Our chicken cooking trick - pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees.  Throw the chicken on a pan lined with foil and season both sides (may we recommend some Montreal Chicken Seasoning?).  Cook for 17 minutes.  The chicken with be slightly crispy on the outside and very juicy inside.  From there, we will finely chop the chicken and add it to the rice mix.

Potential additions to the base mixture include finely chopped ham (left over from Easter dinner), a small can of crushed tomatoes, any other of your favorite vegetables.  

How to keep it interesting throughout the week:

Use the full arsenal of your refrigerator.  Add salsas, hot sauces, soy sauce, whatever you can think of to add a little zing.  Our finding is that flavor is very important in how satisfied we are after lunch.

Easy Homemade Hummus

We go through a lot of hummus. It's a great snack that we eat regularly, if not daily. Problem is though, it can get expensive quickly. 

A can of chick peas is cheap and a container of tahini goes a long way. There are a lot of recipes online (most pretty similar) and the ingredients list on our favorite brand is pretty short. One difference between the two is cooked vs uncooked chick peas. We made it both ways. And cooked is definitely what we prefer. It's creamier with more flavor. We add whatever flavors we happened to have a lot of at the time- garlic, jalapenos, hot sauce, onion, etc- and seasonings. Mix it in a food processor/blender or even mash yourself. And that's pretty much it. We usually double the recipe and it lasts anywhere from 1-3 weeks, depending on our carrot supply. We also usually make ours with jalapenos (shocking) but you can substitute with something else or eliminate. 

Ingredients:

- 1 can cooked chick peas

- 2 tablespoons tahini

-  Seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, cumin, garlic

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- 1-2 tablespoon lemon juice*

- 1/4 cup jalapenos chopped*

*Sometimes we'll add jalapeno juice instead of lemon juice. 

Recipe:

Cook chick peas (do not drain) on low for about 30 minutes or until soft. Add to blender, or mash yourself (which is easy if cooked enough) until smooth. Add remaining ingredients (add the olive oil slowly to get your preferred consistency). Taste testing is the best method to determine appropriate amount for each ingredient. 

Enjoy with your favorite snacks! 

Fresh Chunky Salsa

We've previously stated our affinity for Tex-Mex fare. In addition to being made gluten free easily, it is also usually cheap. But sometimes you get what you pay for and salsa is one of those items. The tastiest salsas are usually chunky and fresh and expensive.

We don't let that stop us. We are cheap and resourceful. We make the most out of canned foods and cheap ingredients to come up with a delicious salsa.

Careful with the jalapenos or your friends won't like you.

Ingredients:
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can whole kernel corn
1 cup chopped pickled jalapeños
1 medium onion chopped
Chili powder
Crushed red pepper
Salt
Pepper
Cilantro

Recipe
Combine all of the vegetables and stir. Add Seasonings to taste.

Note - adjust the jalapeños and crushed red pepper to taste for your palate.

Note - cilantro is a nice addition, but not 100% necessary.

Potential additions:
Bell pepper
Cucumber
Shallots
Crushed tomatoes (if diced are not available)

DIY: Necklace and Robe Holders

I didn't have anywhere to hang my necklaces and we needed another hook or two for towels/robes in the bathroom. Less than $15 at Michaels Arts & Crafts and about an hour later, I had both. I love the wooden art section at Michaels, which is where I found both projects. The total cost included the wooden anchor and pegs as well as a small container of navy blue paint. Our bedroom and bathroom is the Nautica Plaid set and the navy paint matched perfectly.

If you are wondering what the large black door is, we live in an old house 

and our shower is in the house's safe.

We waited about two hours for the paint to dry and then hung them both up. We'll only use the anchor to hang robes because we didn't use a protective spray. We also used two nails on either side of the anchor to keep it in place. I only painted one coat on each, however I'd recommend two.

Not exactly what we had in mind originally, but we really like how they turned out!