Dinner Under $2: Red Beans and Rice

The onion and red beans (and who knows what else they put in that Carolina mix) make this one bad for no-FODMAP folks, but it's otherwise a good bet.
The inspiration was a Hunts can of tomato sauce with onion, celery, and green pepper. These three ingredients, often known as the "holy trinity" of Louisiana cuisine, are the foundation of any good jambalaya, gumbo, etc.

Ingredients:

12 oz sweet Italian sausage
16 oz Hunts Diced Tomatoes with Onion, Pepper and Celery
8 oz Carolina Red Beans and Rice mix
1 tbsp butter





First, slice and brown sausage. I used butter.

While your sausage is cooking, make your rice & beans. Add tomatoes and sausage at some point near the end. It might be a little liquid-y.









Serve with hot sauce and smiles. It tastes just fine. I wish it stretched a little further, and also didn't contain enough salt - between the tomatoes and the red beans mix - to dissolve a football field full of slugs. But for a meal that took under 30 minutes to prepare, I'm not complaining.






FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: 40 min. Heat the pan, cook the sausage, cook the rice, etc ec.
Servings: 4.
Agony rating: 2/10. Really, just monitoring the sausage.
Taste and stuff: 6/10. Not bad.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

12 oz sweet Italian sausage: $3.99
16 oz Hunts Diced Tomatoes with Onion, Pepper and Celery: $1.34
8 oz Carolina Red Beans and Rice mix: $1.19
1 tbsp butter: marginal cost is essentially free
Servings: 4
Total cost of stuff I had to buy special: $6.52
Cost per serving: $1.63

VERDICT: SUCCESS. Add hot sauce.

Pork Bone and Carrot Soup & Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Remember that children's story "Stone Soup?" Basically it's the culinary version of Tom Sawyer and the white picket fence. Clever hero boils water, adds stone; intrigued neighbors contribute ingredients to flavor the stone soup; stone soup is the best thing everyone's ever tasted, etc etc. This recipe is that, only with a leftover pork shoulder bone from when I made pulled pork over the weekend.

So, iPhone in hand, I get off the subway and tear through the fancy supermarket on the way home like a tornado. What goes with pork bone? Carrot? Carrot and ginger, sure, that's great! But what about lentils? Then I spotted a packet of Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix and it was all over.

Seems easy. I'll just substitute half the ingredients and quadruple the measurements & cooking time.

 Bob is a real person. I saw him speak at a conference once, and he and his company are awesome. Having the CEO and founder market the company through talks at tech conferences is a pretty inefficient way to get people talking about your product... but it worked on me, so there you go.

Anyhow, so I left the fancy grocery having dropped $20 on carrots, celery, ginger, the soup mix, chips, soy sauce, and some hamburger rolls for pulled pork sandwiches. Not the most value for our money, I guess...

I ran home and started throwing things in the crockpot per Bob's instructions. Bob's recipe was for four cups of liquid to one cup of soup mix. My monster crock laughs at such piddling portions, and so I did this:

16 cups water
4 cups Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix (for FODMAP free version, skip this part/find an alternative! Rice or rice noodles, perhaps?)
5 carrots, chopped and peeled
5 sticks celery, chopped and peeled
1 leftover pork shoulder
1 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf

I turned it on low and set the timer for ten hours. Instant dinner for tomorrow.

Then I made our dinner, which was fairly easy.

Yay.

The next day, I woke up to discover that the soup was not looking so awesome. In fact, it more resembled sludge, or someone's breakfast after they're done with it.

Good... morning?

This is because Bob's Red Mill mix contains pasta, and you should not cook pasta for ten hours. Lesson learned.

It tastes inoffensive, which for the low low cost and high resourcefulness (and health factor, if you're ok on pulses) is not an insupportable outcome.

The next night we ate even more pulled pork sandwiches and salad, from the same ingredients I bought last weekend. And they were delicious.

FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: 30 min. Peeling, chopping, measuring, etc.
Servings: 6-8. But will you want them?
Agony rating: 3/10. Peeling and chopping veggies takes time.
Taste and stuff: 3/10. Blech. Added salt and white wine vinegar to increase palatability.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

For soup:
Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix: $5.99
Celery bunch:$1.99
Carrot 2.7 lbs at $0.99/lb: $2.70
Total cost of stuff I had to buy special: $10.68
Cost per serving: $1.78 for 6 servings; $1.33 for 8.

VERDICT: MEH. Next time, I won't overcook.


For sandwiches:
8 hamburger rolls: $3.49
Leftover pulled pork: $2.20 per serving, approx
Cost per serving: $2.64

VERDICT: HELL YES. Just needs pickles.