BBQ Beans, Sourdough, and Food Substitutes from Food Storage

expanded food storage

Really Easy Barbeque Beans

These beans take maybe 5 minutes of hands-on time, and taste really good on a chilly day. They're also very inexpensive. Good with hot cornbread!

• The night before you want to serve the beans, put 2 C of small white beans in a crockpot, then add enough water to cover the beans by about 3 inches. Cook on low all night.
• The next morning, drain the beans and rinse. Using a 1-cup measuring cup, measure 3/4 C barbeque sauce, then fill to the top with molasses for 1/4 C molasses. (This way, the molasses won't stick to the measuring cup, making for easy cleanup.) Dump the mixture into the crockpot and stir.
•  Let the beans cook in the sauce all day on low, and they'll be ready for supper.

Yummy Sourdough Bread

 

Sourdough bread is easy and inexpensive to make (cost ranges from about 20 to 30 cents for a big round crusty loaf). Although the time from start to finish is long, the hands-on time is minimal.

1. First make a starter. Mix 2 C flour with 2 C water and 2 T yeast. Let the starter sit for two days, stirring occasionally.
2. Dissolve 1 T salt in 1 C water. Add 2 C starter and 5½ C flour. Stir and knead into a ball.
3. Let rise overnight at room temperature.
4. The next morning, punch dough down and form into two round loaves.
5. Let the loaves rise for about 4 hrs. (Sourdough takes a long time to rise but it isn't fussy.)
6. Put a pan of water in the oven and preheat to 400. Bake bread for 35 minutes.
7. Replenish the starter by adding 1 3/4 C water and 1 3/4 C flour.

Low-cost Substitutes from Food Storage

You can use standard food storage items to make some useful, low-cost substitutes.

Note: the following ideas come from the Tightwad Gazette, a series of books by Amy Dacyczyn.

A Dozen Eggs for Twenty Cents

Did you know there's a whole-grain egg substitute you can use in baking that has no cholesterol and costs about twenty cents for a dozen "eggs"? It's soybean flour!

1 egg = 1 heaping T soy flour + 1 T water

 

I tried this in muffins, and it worked! A pound of soybean flour costs sixty cents out at Good Earth Natural foods, and 12 heaping tablespoons of soy flour measured 5 oz, so a dozen soybean "eggs" costs just under twenty cents. Plus, the soy flour has no cholesterol, and it provides high-quality, complete protein.