Pinto bread: A weekly beans story.

Earlier this month I mentioned a frugal challenge called “weekly beans.” DF and I have vowed to make beans the focus of at least one meal a week. In part that’s because of inflation, which is scaring our frugal pants off right now. Mostly, though, it’s because we have so many beans in storage.

Sure, they’ll keep indefinitely (or what passes for indefinitely at our ages). But why have them, so why not eat them? Especially since they were bought at a lower price than they go for now, and since they’re good for us, and since they’re so darned tasty?

The week after that post we used the seasoned black beans from the freezer for rice bowls and burritos. The last few spoons of beans went into a soup made from boiling bag broth, to add some additional heft (and nutrition) to the carrots, potatoes, onions and homegrown celery.

Last week I announced that I would cook a few cups of pinto beans. Most would go into the freezer for future chili. But some would go into a recipe that I couldn’t get out of my brain: pinto bean bread.

Once I saw that, I couldn’t un-see it. The same is true of things like ketchup cookies and Kool-Aid pickles. It isn’t just a good idea to try these things. It’s the law.

Pinto bean bread isn’t a new thing, but it was certainly new to me. This particular recipe came from a blog called A Farm Girl in the Making. The blogger, Ann Accetta-Scott, called it a “stick-to-your-bones and fill you up kinda recipe.”

She’s not wrong.

Read more

Found money in 2022.

Longtime readers know that I save my found money all year long, keeping it in a vase that my daughter found for me in the free box of a long-ago yard sale. In January, I round up the total and donate it to the food bank. This year’s total greatly eclipsed the 2021 take: $18.04 vs. $5.88.

The found money looked like this:

  • One $5 bill
  • Three $1 bills
  • 27 quarters
  • 19 dimes
  • 13 nickels
  • 74 pennies

The greenbacks were courtesy of DF, who did a couple of quick opinion surveys for a company that, believe it or not, sent him actual cash vs. a check or a gift card. His reasoning was that he is retired and wasn’t looking for employment; therefore, it was found money.

Usually I donate to Feeding America or to the Food Bank of Alaska. This year, as in 2021, I’m going to donate to the church of my childhood. The Fairton United Methodist Church now operates a small food bank to help people in that small town.

Some people are appalled by the notion of picking money up from the ground, the floor or one of those Coinstar machines. If that’s you, then you do you. But as I noted in “Filthy lucre,” it’s not as though I carry these coins home in my mouth. Food banks are being bombarded (thanks, inflation!), so for me it’s worth the stoop and then the hand sanitizer.

Read more