In the foreground you have microwave burritos. Cost per person $5 at the Family Dollar General Tree.
In the background you have canning chickpeas and black beans. The chickpeas have already exited the canner. The black beans are about to go in. A pound of dried chickpeas or black bean is about $1.50. You will get 7 pints out of both. The current price for generic canned beans is about 90¢. Cost to can 7 cans of the beans: 22¢ per jar.
My back hurt too much to do the dinner I planned. But I had enough in me to can some stuff for the future.
Canning dried beans seems exessive to me, though I love canning in general. Dried beans are well preserved as-is. Just soak the night before and cook in a pressure cooker to save time and energy.
I save the effort of canning for things that won’t naturally preserve well. Fruits, jams, vegetables, pickles, meats, whole stews, tomatoes etc…
Where do you feel the value is for the effort?
It’s a convenience thing. It takes as much work to make beans for one meal as it does to can for seven at once. It saves a lot of time. Even if you pressure can day of. One soak, one cook is a lot less work than repeating it 7 times.
I frequently run into people that want to do things like can rice. Rice takes 20 minutes from start to finish and, like beans, are shelf stable. But beans require two hours of work if not precooked in addition to the pure nastiness of the texture of canned rice. Canned beans don’t have that issue.
I’ve thought about doing that very thing. I love me some beans, and only buy dried. It works if you’ve got a good day to day rhythm going. But if you don’t have the time, or miss soaking them the night before it’s all derailed.
Definitely. Gotta plan one day or two hours in advance.
My guess is prep time. These are essentially ready to eat now, so it’s easier to add them to a dish without having to soak them first.
Plus now they’re heavier and taking up more space.
A 1 lb bag of beans and a one pint can of beans weigh about the same amount. As for storage, one of the first projects I undertook when I moved into my house was to make sure space would not be an issue. I built myself some custom shelves.
It’s like computer algorithms. Some take up more RAM, some require more CPU time, some require more hard drive storage, and you pick the right one for your scenario. If weight and volume aren’t an issue but prep time is, this is better for your use cases.
But how about home made burritos that can be microwaved at work for a quick lunch? 😺
I still need to find some really good, simple burrito filling recipes.
Beans, enchilada sauce, cheese. Sometimes homemade tortillas.
Thank you, friend! I saved that one for later!
Occasionally I’ll also do something like make a burrito in a jar and can that. I’ll pop taco seasoning, chunks of meat, bell peppers and onion into a jar and do a raw pack pressure canning on it. When I want a juicy meaty burrito I popped the can open, heat it up in a pot and put it into a tortilla. Then again sometimes I’ll serve it over rice.
I use this Hearty Black Bean Quesadilla recipe and add refried beans for burritos even though it is a quesadilla recipe.
I also use this Chicken Taco Bowl recipe for burritos instead of ontop of a bowl of rice. Sometimes I make Spanish rice for the burritos.
For sauces I like Easy Chipotle Sauce and Copycat Taco Bell Quesadilla Sauce I use sour cream instead of mayonnaise
$5 per person microwave burritos? I’m used to paying $5 for a package of 8.
As am I. But these aren’t those. This is a giant spicy beef, a both a chicken and beef chimichanga. They are on another level from mini micro burritos.
Ah, ok. Sounds good!
My beans often break up in cooking before they are cooked through, then are on the mushy side by the time all are cooked. What method do you use for cooking your beans? I have started adding salt and pinch of baking soda to the soaking water after I read about that supposedly helping. But still get mostly broken beans.
For canning I do a oil for 5 minutes and then hot soak for 45 minutes to an hour depending on the bean. Then I put them in the jar with a little bit of room for expansion. Then I fill with boiling water leaving 1 in of headspace. Then I can pints for 75 minutes after all the venting and bringing the pressure.
