this n that (and recipes!)

I recently found the Happy Foody blog and I have to say it's really inspiring. Sara is a vegan and eats a mainly raw food diet. I was a vegetarian for seven years, and while I don't have the desire to be totally meat free, I do tend to prepare primarily vegetarian meals when it's my turn to cook.

We eat lots of produce already, but I'm trying to get more (and more varied) into our diet. It's kind of hard on a limited budget, but definitely doable. I've written about this before, but here's how I do it:

1. Watch the ads for the loss leader organic produce
2. Shop Whole Foods - again, primarily buying what's in season and on sale
3. Stalk the Kroger markdown area - I end up with great deals on organic bananas, spinach, and salad mixes.
4. Use the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists for deciding on organic vs. non-organic

Our lunch today was so good, I wanted to share a couple of recipes. I saw this post over at Happy Foody and the sweet potatoes sounded awesome! I love sweet potatoes, but only ever eat them around the holidays and then, only when someone else has prepared them. I didn't realize how easy and fast they are - so forgive me if you've been making them forever. I kind of adapted a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

Easy Sweet Potatoes
about 2 lbs of sweet potatoes (I used one huge one) - cubed
about 2 Tbs of butter
about 2 Tbs of maple syrup (Ours is a mix of maple syrup and agave nectar - both from the bulk aisle at WF)
a little bit of salt, and pepper if you like

I threw all of the above in the pot with about a 1/2 cup of water. Heat it all up on medium until the water boils - then cover it and turn it down to a simmer. Stir it every five minutes or so until the potatoes are soft (or whatever level of tenderness you like) - takes about 20 minutes all together.

It made enough for everyone to have huge servings and I have some leftover that I'll be snacking on in a bit.

Last week I made up a big batch of beans in the slow cooker. Sort of recipe:

4 Bean Mess o' mess
1/2 cup pinto beans
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup kidney beans
1/2 cup adzuki beans (these are packed with protein, but we've discovered that we don't really care for them by themselves - they were great mixed in with the others, though.)
about a cup of chopped onion
about a cup of chopped red bell pepper
four strips of bacon (you could leave this out of course)
salt and pepper to taste

I rinsed all of the beans and picked them over, but I don't soak them before slow cooking. Throw all of the above in the slow cooker and then add enough water so that the water is about 2 inches over the beans. Cook on high for 6-8 hours (until the beans are soft). Keep an eye on the water level - you may need to add more. You could also add stock if you wanted, but I figured with the bacon it would be overkill.

We had beans and rice the other night, leftovers the next day, and I froze three 2-cup servings for later.

So, for lunch today the kids had cheese quesadillas, beans, and sweet potatoes. Derek and I had cheese, bean, and lettuce soft tacos with sweet potatoes on the side. It was so good!

I also wanted to share a link that Tara sent me. It's really the way we shop/cook/eat - I think she sums it up perfectly: Saving Money on Food (the No Compromise Way) - I've added her blog over in my blogroll, too. Check it out, if you get a chance!