Dried beans, people! Do you have them?

Cos you need them. If you are coming up short every month and you stay at home with the kids you HAVE the time for dried beans. They are easily 1/3 the cost of their canned variety and are easily used as a meat substitute. Today I am making an Indian chickpea dish, Chickpeas Moghlai-style, from Madhur Jaffrey's highly-recommended "World Vegetarian". Now, obviously, given the last recipe I referred to, we are NOT vegetarians. We are realists. Most of the rest of the world's population subsist on vegetables first, meat second. My parents' generation had meat only one or two times a week, and sometimes not even that frequently. They were older... born during the Great Depression, poor, and had to eat beans and rice many an evening. And get this - if you make it right, beans and rice are REALLY GOOD. I mean DELICIOUS good. And cheap. And you know I loves the cheap.

So grab yourselves a copy of Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. I am not getting paid to endorse this. I am not even sure I am not blogging into the wind. But believe me, in lean times that cookbook is a lifesaver. It offers vegetable based meals that are easy on the wallet and are not only Indian, but Caribbean, Central and South American. All good stuff and most don't require any expensive ingredients.

Also, if you have to buy some spices for the dishes, keep them in the freezer. In fact, I keep ALL my spices in the freezer. They last longer as long as you only take them out long enough to measure out the correct amount and put the bottle back immediately. Do not let condensation build up inside the container. Water, light and humidity are the enemies of spices, but I have stretched the life-span of all my spices and herbs by freezing them and handling them carefully (i.e., briefly) when I use them.