People tell me all the time eating healthy is too expensive...they just cannot afford it. When you take a good look at the most expensive items on your grocery list, most of the time it is meat. Making a change to a Whole Food Plant Based diet, (WFPB), won't automatically save you money, but it's easy enough to plan healthy, flavorful meals with a budget in mind. The best way to cut back on food expenses is to eat out less frequently and limit pricey convenience foods...but that holds true with any kind of "diet". (I really don't like using the word "diet" because this is a lifestyle change, not a diet that we have a start and finish date set. When I use the word "diet", my definition translates to the food we eat everyday).
Ok, so, here are a few ideas that will help you save money without spending hours in the kitchen:
- Cook beans and grains from scratch but in large enough quantities to stretch for several meals. Leftovers don't have to be the same old thing. Serve black beans over rice on one night, and then mixed with corn, salsa and wrapped in a tortilla the next. If you still have beans leftover, you can stretch them with a can of tomatoes for a third dinner. Or cook up a pot of chickpeas and use half to make hummus for sandwiches and half in a pasta and bean soup. The versatility of beans means that they can appear in meals thought the week without getting boring.
- No amount of leftovers is too small to save. If you have just a quarter cup of rice left, toss in some shredded carrots and a little bit of tahini, (sesame seed paste found in grocery stores), roll it up in a whole-wheat tortilla for a wrap sandwich.
- Keep frozen vegetables on hand. They are just as nutritious as and often cost less than fresh. And, they make it so easy to create fast dinners without having to make an extra trip to the store. (I often throw a bag of vegetables in a skillet with Chinese Brown Sauce--recipe in a previous blog--add some kind of whole grain such as quinoa or brown rice, some beans if you have them on hand, and Wha-La, dinner!
- Believe it or not, sometimes the ethnic stores are much less expensive when looking for Indian or Asian items...cumin, turmeric, coriander, and other really good spices, beans, tahini, etc.
- If you have room and a nice sunny spot on a window sill, grown your own herbs. During our growing season, if you can plant a garden, you will be golden!! The vegetables you can grow and freeze can carry you through most of the winter. If you have no room for a garden, tomatoes, lettuce and other greens can all be grown in pots. Leafy greens such as kale, (an absolute SUPERFOOD), and Swiss Chard will give you a harvest throughout the summer and well into the fall.
Today's recipe comes from the cookbook, Everyday Happy Herbivore by Li
KIDNEY-QUINOA BURGERS
1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 c water
1 15 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 T barbecue sauce
2 T ketchup
2 T low-sodium soy sauce
1 T yellow mustard
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 T Italian seasoning
1/2 t paprika
1/2 c vital wheat gluten (if you are eating gluten-free, use oats)
- In a small saucepan, combine quinoa with 1/2 cup of water, cover and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to low and continue to cook until fluffy and all water has evaporated, about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, mash beans with a fork in a mixing bowl until the consistency of refried beans.
- Add remaining ingredients in order, plus cooked quinoa, and stir to combine.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray the cookie sheet with Pam.
- Break mixture into 6 equal segments. Roll each into a ball and flatten it, shape it into a patty using your hands.
- Bake for 8 minutes, flip, and bake for 8 more minutes, then flip again for 5 minutes, but only if necessary. When the burgers are brown and crisp on the outside, the are done.
Serve the burgers on a whole-wheat bun with all the fixin's!
RSS Feed
