Beans make an excellent staple food. Combined with any grain -- things like rice and wheat, or bread, are pretty cheap -- they make a complete protein. This is a good cookbook for cheap eating.
The really cool thing is that beans will take on other flavors readily. So if you buy spices, you can make the beans taste totally different. World spice blends are especially good; watch for them in bargain bins or at a bargain store. Other relatively cheap ingredients like onions or tomatoes also work well. You can even make use of certain kitchen scraps -- bacon grease, a ham bone or slab of ham skin all work great to flavor beans; or schmaltz from trimming chicken skin/fat off of pieces. If I make a ham or a hamsteak, I usually figure on ham'n'beans later. We use dried shrimp that we found in an African store for making honeybeans. My partner likes hummus, which has hundreds of flavors.
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Beans make an excellent staple food. Combined with any grain -- things like rice and wheat, or bread, are pretty cheap -- they make a complete protein. This is a good cookbook for cheap eating.
The really cool thing is that beans will take on other flavors readily. So if you buy spices, you can make the beans taste totally different. World spice blends are especially good; watch for them in bargain bins or at a bargain store. Other relatively cheap ingredients like onions or tomatoes also work well. You can even make use of certain kitchen scraps -- bacon grease, a ham bone or slab of ham skin all work great to flavor beans; or schmaltz from trimming chicken skin/fat off of pieces. If I make a ham or a hamsteak, I usually figure on ham'n'beans later. We use dried shrimp that we found in an African store for making honeybeans. My partner likes hummus, which has hundreds of flavors.