Kidney Beans and Polenta
I’ve never been a very good blogger. Which is why there haven’t been any updates for a while. Anyway, I thought I’d post the recipe and info for what we had for dinner for most of last week. It was filling, nutritious, and very tasty (if I may say so myself). This uses my ever convenient slow cooker, but can be adapted for stove top.
Ingredients
1 lb dried kidney beans
1 medium onion (small dice)
1 tsp oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 tbl salt
1 56 oz can of crushed tomatoes
2.5 cups polenta
For the Beans
Pick over the beans and remove any stones. Pour over water to at least 4 inches over the kidney beans and discard any that float. Soak over night, changing the water at least once, if possible. Briefly blanch the beans in boiling water (a minute or so), and drain to remove any possible toxins, though this isn’t that common in the US. Drain the beans.
Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat and add the diced onions. Cook until soft, then add the garlic and spices and cook on high for about one minute. Put the onion mixture in the slow cooker, add the drained beans, then the crushed tomatoes. Fill the tomato can about half way with water, then add that tomato-y water (since it’s not actual tomato water…) to the crock pot as well. Stir well, then set the crock pot for about 7 hours on low to cook.
When it’s done, stir well, then salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 12 servings of 1/2 cup kidney beans.
For the Polenta
I use a 3 to 1 ratio for my polenta. While I ended up making 3 cups for the whole week, some of that was included as part of breakfast, so right now, I’ll just do 2.5 cups that we ate for dinner during the week.
Bring 7.5 cups of salted water to a boil.
Slowly pour in polenta, stirring the entire time, in order to avoid clumps (biting into an uncooked, dry clump of polenta can ruin my meal).
Continue Stirring. Stir constantly for approximately 10 minutes, or until the mixture has completely thickened to a paste and a cooled bite of the polenta is soft when tasted. Ordinarily, this is where you add 2 table spoons of butter and a half cup of grated parmigiana reggiano. But, in the interests of frugality, they were omitted. *sigh*
Pour out onto a cookie sheet, large piece of parchment paper, or board. Spread the polenta into a large rectangle about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and let cool for at least 15 minutes.
Cut into 8 large, rectangular pieces (or 16, if you’re like me) and serve as needed. For this week, they were topped with a 1/2 cup of kidney bean stew!
The Numbers
For this month, 2 pies is a serving
Cost
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
| Kidney Beans |
1 lb dry | $1.49 |
| Crushed Tomato | 56 oz | $0.99 |
| Onion | 8 oz (1 medium) | $0.26 |
| Polenta | 2.5 cups | $0.99 |
| Salt | 0.5 lb | $0.65 |
| Total | $3.73 | |
| Per Serving | 10 | $0.37 |
Nutrition
Calories: 363
Fat: 1.3
Saturated Fat: n/a
Cholesterol: 0
Carbohydrates: 71.9
Fiber: 13..1
Protein: 17.0
It was very nice to be able to not think about dinner at all last week!
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