First meal - Chips and Guac

I've been craving guacamole for a few weeks now.  But seeing $2.00 avocados that weren't anywhere close to ripe at Jewel made me balk.  We'd been going to Jewel the last few months because they were having a special offer to collect stamps to get some decent new non-stick pans for a penny.  I couldn't say no to that.  A penny!  Well, we got our wonderful new stir-fry pan and we love it.  But now that it's acquired, good-bye Jewel, at least, for now, we're headed back to Tony's.  My hope was that Tony's would be having avocados on sale, but they didn't.  But I couldn't hold out anymore.  Must.  have.  GUAC!

Half the price though and as always they had tons of ripe avocados from which to choose.  The other great thing about Tony's.  Locally produced tortillas and tortilla chips.  So two avocados and a bag of chips into the cart and into my belly last night!

Simple dinner, really.  And vegetarian.  A plus since I feel we've been eating way too much meat lately.  Guacamole and chips with refried beans.  Homemade.

For the refried beans you will need 6oz of dried beans.  It really doesn't matter what kind.  Red, white, black.  They all make a delicious refried bean.  For this particular night I used cranberry beans.  And I didn't soak them.  You don't have to soak them. Soaking them pretty much just shrinks the cooking time.  But since I was cooking this for the same day, I just threw them into a pot, filled that pot with maybe 5 times more water then beans, a little salt and then let them boil until soft.  Keeping enough water with the beans so that they were just covered, I then took the stick blender and blended them into a chunky mash.  You can blend it as smooth as you want.  I like some chunks though.  I then heated a saute pan, melted a tablespoon of butter in it, tossed in the bean mash and stirred it while giving it a quick fry.  I had to add a little water to get the proper consistancy and then gave it a taste to see if it needed more salt.  This by the way made much more refried beans then we needed, so half of it ended up in the fridge for later use.

Here's what was in the guacamole -
2 avocados
Half a plum tomato
2 oz of onion
Half a jalapeno, seeded
Half a lime
salt&pepper

The avocados were cut in half, the pit thrown out and then the meat spooned out into a bowl.  The onion and tomato were small diced, the jalapeno finely chopped and tossed in and then the half a lime was squeezed of its juice into the bowl.  Salt and pepper to taste and then smashed and mixed altogether with a fork.  The other half of the tomato was diced and with a chopped green onion, they were used as garnish.  And the other leftover veggie halves and pieces were stored for later use in another recipe later on in the week.

So there we have it.  On each plate, 3oz of tortilla chips, a portion of refried beans, half the guacamole garnished with tomato, green onion and a 2oz dollop of sourcream.  It's a fairly hearty meal for one.

I'm actually a little afraid to see what the calorie count is.  One plate alone is really enough for two people.  But we made two plates. Heh.  We may have to work on the whole portioning thing.  Having said that, this was our first meal under the "Food Stamp Plan".

Total cost per person - $1.88

Yep, need more awareness on the portioning.