Eatin' Cheap

When I was in grad school, I learned to eat cheap. One of my favorite dishes was to fix a big pot of beans and rice—which would last me a week. Economical and nutritional, such a fare wasn’t for everyone. But I got by and occasionally I still find myself longing for a pot of beans. This weekend I didn’t have to cook for anyone but myself and decided to make a pot. I’ll be eating them at least a meal a day for the rest of the week. Here’s my recipe (remember, everything is approximate).

-one pound of dried beans (red beans, pintos, navy, experiment with different varieties)
-ham hock (optional)
-2 cups of rice
-24 ounce can of stewed tomatoes (not really optional, but I didn’t have any this time!)
-a couple of onions, sliced
-Garlic, diced
-½ a cabbage sliced
-Variety of spices like oregano and basil
-Hot sauce

Wash and then soak beans in water for an hour. I fix my beans in a pressure cooker—small red beans can cook in about 12 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. If you are using a ham hock, put it with the beans in the pressure cooker.

Afterwards, add rice, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage and spices. Add liquid (you’ll need to make sure there is enough liquid to cook the rice, at least 4 cups plus the juice from the tomatoes. Guess on how much juice you have from the beans, then add enough to make the difference or drain the beans and add 5 cups of water plus the liquid in the tomatoes). Bring to a boil; turn down to a medium low flame and cook, stirring regularly, till rice is done. Serve with bread (or if you want to be fancy, fix up some of Sage’s cornbread), along with plenty of hot sauce.

Note on using a pressure cooker: The pressure cooker is a useful kitchen tool, but you must learn how to use them safely for they can be dangerous. Once mastered, pressure cookers cook food much quicker and with much less energy. If not for the pressure cooker, you’d be cooking the beans for hours. In my list of favorite pots, my pressure cooker ranks right behind my cast iron skillets and my wok.