Friday, March 12, 2010

Rice and Bean Salad: Frugal Food Friday

Sorry I have been MIA for the last two weeks.  It's been a combination of substitute teaching every weekday, being a mom to my three kids, and making sure the hubby gets the homework time he needs...oh, yeah...and mostly forgetfulness by the time Friday rolls around.  Maybe I need to research recipes to help my memory.
Anyway, here's a recipe that our family loves from page 243 "What to Eat When You're Expecting" by Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway.  It's healthy for everyone though, and super yummy!  Now our kids used to eat this, but my 5 year old doesn't like "spicy" food as much as she used to, so was turned off to the raw onions in this the last time around.  Then of course since she complained about it, the 2 year old wouldn't eat it either.  Our 11 month old gobbled up the beans and rice from it though.  So I guess I can't guarantee that your kids will eat it...but ours used to.  It's colorful and has lots of crunchy texture.  I especially love the walnuts in it for that.

Bean and Brown Rice Salad:

Combine in salad bowl and mix:
4 cups cooked brown rice
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained
1 can chickpeas, drained
2/3 cup finely minced red onion
1 cup finely diced red bell pepper
1 cup finely diced green bell pepper
1/3 cup coarsley chopped walnuts or whole pine nuts

Combine and pour over salad:
1 cup apple juice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (we like it better with only 1 though)
1/4 cup tarragon vinegar (which we don't have, so I use regular white vinegar or red wine vinegar)
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix well and chill.  You can eat this right away, but it tastes even better if you wait a day for the flavors to mingle and the onion to lose a bit of it's kick.

Sorry, there's no calorie info, but this book has a sort of diet system with it and for that system it says 1/4 of this recipe = 1 protein, 1 whole grain, 1 vitamin C serving, and 1/2 yellow vegetable serving.  I'm not sure how that translates to other diet programs.

5 comments:

Dorothy said...

Sounds great! I think I'll use my sprouted brown rice with it. :)

PS...welcome back, Polly. I've missed your posts!

Katie Lewis said...

This looks really yummy Polly. Hopefully the kidos will eat it again soon. :)

Kathy Haynie said...

Maybe the 5-year-old would like it better if you sautéed the onions first. I think I would do that for me, because I agree with her about not-too-spicy foods. The recipe does look yummy - I think I'll include it with next week's menus!

Polly @ Pieces by Polly said...

Dorothy, I like the idea of using sprouted rice. I haven't tried the sprouting yet, but I think I will next time I make this salad.

Kacie said...

This does sounds yummy!

I may have to try it with pine nuts! They're one of my favorites!(though, we call them piñons in this next of the desert. It's our state 'tree' (Read: Shrub))

Thanks for the recipe!

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