Interconnecting Meals: Black Bean Burritos to Black Bean Burger Sliders

A staple of budget cooking is to base a series of meals around a single cheaper ingredient. Last week we got several meals based around black beans.

Instead of getting canned beans, we buy a bag of uncooked and prepare our own, which is actually a good deal cheaper, and lets you control the flavor. First off we soak the beans overnight, changing the water two or three times, and then they are finally ready for cooking.

The beans are cooked in water with a standard array of seasonings: garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper, and maybe a little cayenne if you like.

Our first meal will be a fun vegetarian twist on burritos using potatoes and beans. Here Megan is dicing potatoes into large squares.

They are covered in seasonings and then baked at a high temperature until they come out crispy. These taste fantastic if you get the right blend of seasonings - we used half a packet of store bought taco seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, and chili powder.

Setup your tortilla like you would with any standard taco or burrito - spread out a layer of sour cream (and guac if you are so inclined!) then spoon on your beans and potatoes, followed by shredded cheese and hot sauce.

We also threw on some lettuce and chipotle sauce for the perfect finish. Wrap it up and dig in!

There were plenty of black beans left over, so we popped them in the fridge to await the next night's dinner: black bean burgers!

If you haven't had these before, your first thought may be "yuck!" but trust us on this one, these are fantastic. Cristal was very skeptical at first ("I dunno...that sounds too healthy....") but after she started chowing down her only response was "More please!"

They don't look or taste anything like beef hamburgers - and they aren't meant to. This is just another option for your dinner arsenal that's fun for a change of pace. It doesn't have to be either/or. We love beef burgers AND veggie burgers.

To get these started, Megan is chopping up red bell pepper, white onion, and mushrooms.

Here we've drained and washed off a portion of the remaining beans.

They get mashed into a paste-like substance by hand so they can be formed into patties.

Of course it's not just black beans alone! Here the veggies are thrown in, along with a nice handful of diced garlic.

We're going to need some seasonings as well. We're using cumin, chili powder, and a couple of squirts of Sriracha hot sauce (careful though - a little goes a long way!)

Throw 'em in and mix it up!

For a little added stability (and to prevent the patties from being too mosit) we're adding in some panko crumbs, but any bread crumbs or even dry oatmeal would work.

Form them into patties like you would with regular beef burgers and line them up on an oiled cookie sheet. That's right - these are baked, not fried!

To go with our burgers we're going to make kale chips instead of French fries. Take a handful of kale and cut it up into small bite sized pieces.

The kale is seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes, and everything goes into the oven to heat up.

The kale comes out crispy like a potato chip. These are surprisingly flavorful, and are a great healthier alternative to most snacks. Unfortunately we over salted ours, but that's OK, they won't get thrown out. We're going to use them to season a soup a few days later (blog coming soon).

As with any regular burger, some of our black bean patties are covered in cheese for the last few minutes of cooking.

We made these smaller then normal and used slider sized buns for a fun change. Here I'm loading mine up with condiments: pickles, jalapenos, avocado, lettuce, tomato, or even the kale chips.

My first one is slathered with some mayo and mustard and it's ready to go!

You can of course toast your buns, or cover them in anything that you like with a normal burger: ketchup, dijon, sweet and hot mustard, Miracle Whip, or anything else. For a full-on veggie experience, use hummus instead!

Here is Megan's first slider, loaded to the brim with tomato, avocado, and lots of delicious mayo.

Easter: Bacon Wrapped Pork And French Onion Soup

Like with our recent St. Patrick's Day meal, we significantly changed up our traditional Easter dinner quite a bit this year. Instead of the traditional chicken, we did a honey mustard pork loin and French onion soup.

For our take on this famous soup, we used both yellow onions and sweet Vidalia, sliced into rings and cooked in olive oil.

Over time they reduce down into a softer consistency that works better for the soup - this also really brings out the flavor.

There are a lot of different ways to make French onion, and many recipes readily available online. We used beef broth and allowed to simmer until it was at the perfect flavor we wanted. Other recipes use other types of broth, or add in thing like sherry for a sweeter taste.

As anyone who has ever ordered this favorite at a restaurant knows, proper French onion needs a baguette in the bowl! Here we've baked some with shredded cheddar on top.

Plop a few pieces of bread in the bowl and then spoon the soup over top, and make sure to get plenty of those awesome onions!

That wonderful side dish wasn't the focus of the meal however. Here we've got a boneless pork loin we snapped up from the local grocery store when we found it on sale for half off. Normally this loin will make three meals, but for our Easter celebration we cooked the whole thing.

The loin will have a sauce rubbed on the outside as well as injected into the meat. The sauce was made by mixing together cranberry mustard, honey/chipotle mustard, and some straight up honey.

Megan heated up part of the sauce with butter to inject it directly in the pork loin, then brushed the remaining sauce over the top.

Anyone familiar with our cooking will know we love adding bacon to pretty much anything - from bacon wrapped chicken thighs to the amazing double pork rollup from last summer's grilling extravaganza. In that spirit, we took our pork loin to the next level by wrapping it in bacon of course!

To work with a big piece of meat like this, lay down a sheet of plastic wrap or use a cookie sheet. Either put the strips of bacon underneath first and then roll the meat over it, or lay the strips over top of the meat and then roll it in and under to wrap around.

We've also placed a few toothpicks to keep it all in place while baking.

The loin was baked with tin foil on top, which was then remove towards the end of the process so the bacon gets more crispy. Pull out the toothpicks and slice this into thin pieces to serve with whatever side strikes your fancy - mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn pudding, etc.

Don't you dare get rid of those pan drippings though! Use them to make gravy for some mashed potatoes instead! They may not look appetizing when the pan comes out of the oven, but they are packed with flavor. With a premium meat like this, mixed with all those honey mustard flavors, you get a gravy you simply can't find in the store. To make a gravy, mix the drippings with some flour and milk and whisk over medium heat until it comes together and thickens up.

Interconnecting Meals: Bacon Wrapped Chicken and Vegetable Soup

We recently pounced on a random sunny day for the first grilling session of 2013 and made grilled chicken sausage sandwiches that had special caramelized onions and a bell pepper relish. After that delicious meal we still had a good deal of the onions and relish leftover:

Rather than letting them languish in the fridge until they went bad, we interconnecting our meals that week by using those leftovers in our next two meals - baked bacon wrapped chicken and a vegetable soup. For the chicken, I've lain down several strips of bacon in an oven safe pan and then set on a few pieces of bone-in chicken thighs, seasoned with cracked pepper.

Next I'm stuffing the onions and relish under the skin of the thighs. If you want to go skinless, you could instead use chicken breasts, slice them open, and stuff the relish inside.

Here's all three pieces stuffed and rubbed down with some of the excess relish sauce.

We're not quite done yet though! To add some more delicious flavor we're topping them with shredded cheddar.

After all the ingredients are in place, the bacon is pulled up and wrapped around each piece. This is much easier (and less messy) to do if you set the bacon on the bottom layer first.

The chicken is baked covered for about 45 minutes and then finished uncovered for another 10 - 15 to let the bacon crisp up. Notice the amazing drippings in the bottom - we're going to save those for the vegetable soup later.

Here I've got some bacon wrapped wonder, but with a salad of course! We need something healthier to go with all that fatty meat and cheese.

The next day we made a vegetable soup, which is going to start with the pan drippings from the bacon wrapped chicken, adding a serious flavor punch.

Our base veggies will be chopped onions, celery, and carrots.

The vegetables are first cooked in the drippings to get soft and soak up all the flavor.

To make this a little heartier we also diced up a little bit of leftover chicken. If you didn't want to go that route however, you could add in another veggie like potatoes, or use something that thickens well like barley or orzo pasta.

The chopped chicken is tossed in with the now-softened vegetables, which are smelling great!

We also had a bag of frozen corn, which went in for more color and texture.

Instead of our standard homemade stock, we decided to do a tomato-based soup. Megan is pouring in a can of Fire Roasted Tomato Soup Starter. Normally these go for around $3, but we found them at Big Lots for 50 cents a piece!

Here's the soup as it's starting to near the end of the cooking process.

For even more vegetable goodness, we're also adding in about a cup of a store brand tomato sauce similar to V8. If you want a hotter soup, go with the spicy kind instead.

And here's our finished soup - hearty and wonderful, and bursting with all kinds of flavors.

For some crunch, we threw in pieces of pita chips. You could also do croutons or anything else that happens to be inhabiting the cabinet.