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When I see jars of expensive bean dips for sale in the supermarket, I just shake my head. Nothing could be easier to make. Just open a can of beans and pour it into a blender along with some seasonings. Here are three recipes to get you started; you’ll find it’s easy to invent more.

Zippy Black Bean Dip
1 can black beans, drained
1 clove garlic
Bottled hot sauce or chopped pickled jalapeno peppers, to taste
1 tablespoon mild vinegar (or to taste)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon chili powder

Mash the ingredients together or puree in a blender. Serve with raw vegetable dippers.

Yield: About 2 cups

Hummus
1 can chick peas, drained
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup tomato sauce
Juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch cayenne
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
Black pepper to taste

Puree all ingredients in a blender. Serve as a dip for raw vegetables.

Yield: about 2 cups

Tex-Mex Bean Dip
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup bouillon or a little olive oil
1 can kidney beans, drained
juice of one lime
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons mild chili powder
pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste

Heat the onions, peppers and the bouillon or oil in a small pot and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Combine with the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Serve with raw vegetable dippers of your choice.

Yield: About 2 cups

FREE — 100 healthful recipes, food lists and more in my Good Food Book

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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Whatever your reason for having a tight budget, the truth is
that going to the grocery store without a plan is a BIG budget
breaker. And sadly all that cash ends up vanishing into our
stomachs and then…well, you know what comes next.

But if you only had $300 a month to spend on groceries for a
family of four, could you do it? What sort of food would make
the list and what would stay tauntingly on the store’s shelves?

Could you save $25 a month on groceries? How about $50 or $100?
Possibly you could cut your bill by almost 50% if you consider
some of the following suggestions:

First you must divide the budget you have into three categories;
weekly, bi-weekly and monthly. Once you have the totals fixed,
try to find a way to make it work. If you budgeted too tight,
only then consider how much more you really need to spend.

Second, identify your WEEKLY needs; milk, bread, fruits. These
will be your saving graces when the troops are hungry. You can
load up every week and always have a healthy snack available.
Think about $15/week.

Third, identify your BI-WEEKLY needs; eggs, cheese, vegetables,
meat and cheese for sandwiches etc. These items have a slightly
longer shelf life but you will watch how much you use when you
know there’s still four days until your next purchase. Try $20
every two weeks.

Fourth, get the remainder of your groceries in one place. Use
cash to pay (to avoid temptation of over spending) and work out
your shopping list ahead of time. You only need to do this once
as many of the items (Cereal, meat etc.) will need to be
repurchased each time. Other items (sugar, flour etc.) may be
substituted every other month. In this example you have $200
left.

Fifth, have a schedule of meals that you can rotate. Cheap,
healthy meals like stir fry can be inexpensive as they use less
meat than full pieces of chicken or beef for dinner. Plan to
have a meat meal offset by a simpler dish like pasta every other
night. This way your family will not go through
‘feast-and-famine’ when they eat like kings the first week and
are eating canned chili every night for the last week.

Always determine your meals based on what you really plan to
cook. If you have easy weeknight staples, try to find the
cheapest method of preparing them, or make do with less pre-
packaged affair on other nights when you have more time. Using
items like frozen vegetables can make eating cheap also healthy
and convenient.

Clearly the $300 suggestion will depend on your family, the age
of your children and how much your budget really allows.
Whatever your budget, taking the time to draw up a plan and
think about your choices will guarantee that you keep more cash
in your wallet for other important things.

Don’t you just love bean soup in the winter? This is an Italian version that we think is very good. Use any dried white bean you have. I particularly like the white kidney beans, but any of them will do. I also like the little tubular pasta that isn’t much bigger than the beans. It holds some of the thick liquid and the size seems just right. Also, have lots of extra parmesan cheese at the table for stirring in at the last minute. Add some crusty bread and a salad and you’ve got a perfect winter supper.

2 T olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 large stalk celery, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 cups canned tomatoes

2 cups white beans, cooked

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 lb small pasta

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

salt and pepper to taste

I prefer to pressure cook the beans which only takes about 45 minutes. You can cook beans in 3 times water to beans until tender, covered over medium heat, until done. If not using a pressure cooker, simmer over low heat until the beans are tender. If not using a pressure cooker, it should take at least an hour and a half.

Sauté the onions, carrots and celery in olive oil until tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Add beans. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add parsley. Adjust seasoning. Serve with generous portions of parmesan cheese and crusty bread.

Enjoy!

Peggy Bloodworth, formerly a well traveled sales executive, left the corprate world to cook for others. Her passion for creative cooking is an obsession that she uses to entertain and create menus and recipes that are sure to please. You can find more information, recipes and food pictures at http://www.swankcatering.com.

Besides the fact that organic food tastes better and it reduces
the amount of cancer-causing chemicals that enter your body,
there are plenty of other very good reasons why you should buy
organic food. Here are just a few:

Organic Meat Comes From Healthier Animals

The animal from which you got your meat is guaranteed to have
been healthy throughout its life. Why? Part of the criteria
governing organic products is agreeing not to use antibodies to
treat an illness. Animals that are raised with the ultimate goal
of being organic are raised in more humane conditions (as
outlined by the United States’ Humane Society). These better
living conditions result in healthier animals and healthier
animals simply are less prone to illness and disease. Of course,
nothing can guarantee an animal will never become ill, and
occasionally one will require antibiotics to cure an ailment.
When this situation happens however, the animal that was treated
with the antibiotics must be removed from the organic farm. The
affected animal loses its organic status and is usually sold to
a conventional farm where it lives out the remainder of its life.

Buying Organic Is A Form of Protest

When you buy organic food, you’re basically making a statement
that you care about what you’re putting into your body. So much
is happening to our food before it enters the supermarket. We
hear about it, yet we do nothing to stop it. If you ever took a
few moments to think about all that food is exposed to, from
start to finish, the details likely would boggle your mind.
Sure, all that perfectly-shaped produce and those rather
full-sized chicken breasts look enticing, but those perfections
are the end result of growth hormones, genetic engineering, and
an abundance of pesticides and fertilizers. You’ve probably
heard the saying, “Nature is not perfect” countless times, yet
time and again you continue to reach for that perfect tomato.
When you buy organic, you are in effect saying you don’t want to
be part of that scene any longer. When enough people buy
organic, and more are making the switch every day, food
companies will be forced to listen to consumers.

It’s Something You Can Do to Protect the Environment

The chemicals that go onto the fields that produce the fruits
and vegetables you eat and that feed the cows and pigs that turn
into your hamburgers and pork chops contaminate the soil and the
water. This affects the animals that live off the land and it
also contaminates the environment. When you choose foods that
are produced without these cancer-causing chemicals, you are not
adding to this problem. Your purchases likely won’t put an end
to environmental damage, but as with all things in life, change
begins with one person. Get a few friends to change their buying
and eating habits, and then have them get a few friends to
change and soon enough, a sizeable impact will be in the works.

Are you studying the principals behind a better diet?
Mediterranean food diets are increasing in popularity because
they are not based on popularized fads but rather a model which
comes from literally thousands of years of use. The
Mediterranean diet is inspired by the traditional dietary
patterns of the Mediterranean area, particularly Italy, Greece,
and Spain. Understanding how the Mediterranean Diet differs from
the typical American diet can help us to improve our eating
habits and enjoy improved health through enjoyable dietary
changes.

The most noticeable characteristic of the Mediterranean Diet is
high consumption of fruits and vegetables, bread and other
cereals, olive oil and fish. Red meat is an infrequent source of
protein in the Mediterranean Diet. Compared to the typical
American diet, this may seem almost exotic. Meals fashioned
after the Mediterranean Diet have a distinctively rich flavor
because of the common use of olive oil as the source of fat in
preparation compared to the margarine and highly processed,
hydrogenated vegetable oils used in the preparation of American
meals. As fat has a higher calorie density than protein and
carbohydrates, portion sizes also appear more modest when
compared to the size of a meal Americans often expect to receive
from a restaurant. The result is a nutrient rich diet, high in
fiber, with a low glycemic index, which includes lean protein
sources and high quality sources of fat.

While the Mediterranean Diet has been developed over time since
as far back as when the Iliad was a new story, it was
“discovered” by an American doctor, Ancel Keys, in 1945. When
compared to modern common American dietary practices, the
Mediterranean Diet appears to be paradoxical. People living in
Mediterranean countries tend to consume relatively high amounts
of fat, and yet they have far lower rates of cardiovascular
disease than in countries like the United States.

If we compare the sources of fat between the Mediterranean Diet
and the typical American diet we can see that the fat sources in
the Mediterranean Diet are of much higher quality and fat
sources like extra virgin olive oil also contain excellent
sources of antioxidants which have been shown to protect the
body from conditions that lead to cardiovascular disease. Olive
oil has also been shown to reduce blood cholesterol while the
animal fats consumed by the typical American tend to increase
cholesterol levels.

Red wine consumption is also a positive factor in many
Mediterranean Diets. Rich in flavonoids, these powerful
antioxidants come from the skins, seeds and stems of grapes
which are what make a red wine red during fermentation. White
wines are fermented without these components and therefore have
lower levels of antioxidants. Regular, moderate consumption of
red wine has been shown to have significant benefit in
cardiovascular health because of the regular ingestion of these
antioxidants.

Genetics, lifestyle, and environment may also be involved in the
health benefits enjoyed by people of these Mediterranean
cultures, but when compared to the typical diet of an American,
the Mediterranean Diet offers a higher quality source of foods
which should bring a benefit in a variety of health factors for
nearly anyone who includes them as their source of nourishment.

I am sure that if you are a coffee enthusiast, you have heard
this, but if not let me state it here. “Coffee is good for you!”

Recent research has shown that coffee is the number one source
of antioxidants in the American diet. Antioxidants, are
nutrients that are responsible from protecting your body’s cells
from being destroyed by toxins. This destruction has been linked
to an increased risk of certain medical conditions, such as
cancer, heart disease and others.

Antioxidants are found in the good stuff that our mothers made
us eat when we were little, namely fruits & veggies. Amazingly,
many of us didn’t listen and took up coffee instead because more
Americans get their daily dose of antioxidants from coffee than
from broccoli!

The top 10 list for the the source of antioxidants in the
Americandiet were listed as follows:

1. Coffee 2. Black Tea 3. Bananas 4. Dried Beans 5. Corn 6. Red
Wine 7. Beer 8. Apples 9. Tomatoes 10.Potatoes

Research also showed that there was esentially no difference
between the amount of antioxidants in regular versus decaf
coffees.

Now this doesn’t mean that you should run out and consume mass
amounts of coffee. Like everything in life, moderation is the
key!

And by the way, you should still eat your fruits and veggies,
just finish them off with a great cup of coffee!

Check out more coffee tips and science at the coffee facts &
fiction section of our website, WeBeJava.com