Grocery Haul for Two and Pizza Beans

I'm still mentally adjusting to feeding just the two of us. I look at the groceries in the cart and think, is this it? :) But slowly I'm figuring it all out and learning to cook and shop for two people. Quite a change from years of feeding a lot of kids and big teenage appetites.

Our First stop this week was Winco. I stocked up on our weekly supply of fruits and veggies as well as a few other items...

The strawberries were looking good so I picked up a pound of those as well as our weekly supply of apples, oranges and bananas. Onions, tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, cabbage and zucchini also were needed.

I decided to stay away from romaine lettuce again this week. We're probably past the e. coli scare but decided to play it safe. I bought a bag of mixed butter lettuce and red lettuce and the sweet kale salad looked appealing. I've bought it before, from Costco, only in a much bigger bag. The small bag was perfect for us. I had planned to pick up coleslaw from the deli to go with one of our meals and in the end decided to serve this instead. 

 

The rest of the items at Winco...

Our regular milk and half-n-half and hubby's chips. Ketchup was on sale for .78 cents a bottle so I bought 2 for the pantry. The packets of ranch dressing mix are for Mississippi pot roast.. well one of them is the other is for the pantry.

Total spent at Winco this week: $32.00

Next stop was Costco..

We're working on our last loaf of bread and will be out soon so I bought another 2 pack. What I've discovered in the last few months is that the two of us can not eat a loaf of bread before it goes bad. So what I do now is simply put the bread in the freezer (the fridge freezer) and remove one piece at a time as we need it. I toast it to defrost it.

The remaining items are ranch dressing, dill pickles, taco seasoning, some dip and coffee filters. Costco has the best price around on cone coffee filters. My hubby drinks more coffee then I do so I make him a pot of coffee each day (I mix half regular coffee grounds and half decaf grounds for him). Even though I use the Keurig for my coffee, I still make coffee by the pot for him and we still need filters. That is a package of 400 filters at a cost of $3.99 making the filters .01 cent each.

Total spent at Costco this week: $36.00

Grand total for the week: $68.00

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Pizza Beans

I've made this recipe for years now and it is favorite. I have a much larger version of this recipe on my website and I called it Italian Pintos. This was my attempt to scale it down. We did end up eating it for 2 dinners and I have 1 serving in the freezer for a future work lunch for hubby. 

Here are the ingredients you will need..

2 cups dry pinto beans

8 cups water

2t salt

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1/2 lb sausage (I used Jimmy Dean)

1T granulated garlic (amount to equal about 3 cloves)

1 can (14oz) diced tomatoes 

1T Italian Seasonings

1/2 cup sliced olives

3oz pepperoni slices, cut in half 

2 cups grated mozzarella cheese

Salt & pepper to taste 

You can make this in an Instant Pot (IP) or simply make it on the stove top. For years I made it on the stove top.

You will need to cook up some pinto beans. I did this meal in my IP. I started with 2 cups dried beans and 8 cups water. Then I added 2 teaspoons of salt.

I always have someone say something when I mention that I cook my dried beans with salt. They inform me that the beans won't cook. That is not true. I've cooked beans with salt for many, many years and never had that happen. What is true is that your beans won't cook if you add anything acidic to them at this point (such as tomato sauce). But beans cooked with salt make for very flavorful beans and delicious bean broth.

I cooked the beans for 60 minutes on high pressure. If doing it on the stove top cook the beans for 2 ½ to 3 hours. When the beans are done strain the beans, saving the bean broth. 

 

While the beans cooked I chopped up a half of a medium onion and 1/2 of a green pepper.  When the beans had been removed from the IP I rinsed it out to cook my onions, peppers and sausage.  I heated the IP (press the Saute button and wait until it reads "hot") and cooked the sausage, onions and peppers. 

After they were cooked I added all the beans (about 5 cups), diced tomatoes and spices.  Then added enough bean broth to to make it a thick soup or chili like consistency.  

The final step was to add about 1/2 can of olives that I had sliced in half and about about 3 oz of pepperoni, sliced in half.  Then I added 2 cups of grated mozzarella cheese and stirred it all together, tasted and adjusted for salt and pepper, and let it simmer for a bit to allow the flavors to blend. 

Now it's time to serve it up.  For my hubby I served up a bowl to him with a salad on the side and some french bread.  For me, I filled a small plate with baby spinach and a chopped roma tomato then topped it with the pizza beans for a pizza bean salad and it was sooo good!  :)