It seems that everywhere you look people are either trying to relieve the pressure on their budget, or to be kinder to the Earth, or both. A couple of months back I wrote about how New Scientist reported that we can significantly reduce our greenhouse gas impact by eating less meat. Since then I’ve been on a quest to have my family eat meat at only one meal a day.
A wonderful side-effect of eating less meat is a reduction in grocery cost. Of course that doesn’t necessarily follow, but focusing on cooking simple food, like beans, from scratch, means less pre-prepared food, which seems to be the easiest way to save. As part of this I’ve been cooking more soups and stews. My favorite tool for making soups and stews is my pressure cooker. So, by cooking beans in a pressure cooker you can actually relieve some of the pressure on your food costs, save some electricity, and be kinder to the Earth.
The pressure cooker is the best tool I know of for cooking beans. It will do so in a fraction of the time taken otherwise. Whereas a recipe says to cook beans for 1 hour, I’m still in search of a short enough time to save my beans from turning to mush. 15 minutes in the pressure cooker is too much. That’s how fast it cooks! Kalyn, who very kindly gave me permission to share her delicious Spicy Pinto Bean Soup photo here, recommends just 8 minutes at pressure to cook pinto beans. Miss Vickie, a pressure cooker guru, has a lot to say about how to save energy using your pressure cooker. So, check out her site if you like facts and figures.
Here are some more learning links to help you save on your grocery costs, find recipes for your pressure cooker, and for soups and stews to cook with and for your kids:
- More on pressure cooking and a good list of pressure cooking vegan recipes. Find more bloggers blogging about pressure cooking.
- Can you meet the hunger challenge and eat on $3 a day? This is the amount you’d have to spend if you were on food stamps. You can find more information and costed out, yummy recipes at The Hunger Challenge blog. Whether or not you want to get your costs down to $3 a day, you are bound to find some inspiration.
- Find just for kids soups and kid friendly soup recipes.Healthy recipes for kids, including Zesty Carrot Soup.
- Or how about hearty Irish recipes, including Irish Stew? Just perfect when St Patrick’s Day comes around.
- I’m intrigued by the idea of Barbecue Stew and I love the colors in this Fall Stew. Normally I don’t like recipes with more than 5 ingredients, but this photo was irresistible.
Find pressure cooker items and the pressure cooker pictured above at Amazon.com.
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I’ve almost completely stopped eating meat because of its cost, and because there are much healthier options. I cut down my grocery bill by about $30 by cutting out most meat, and buying fresh, healthier foods.
I do need to cook more at home though (rather than quickie meals). I’m still a college kid though so I try not to get to many heavy-duty cooking supplies.
Hi Kayla, thanks for visiting. I agree, when you are in college you probably want a minimum of equipment. I suppose the nice thing about a pressure cooker is it could serve as your one cooking pot and they do come in different sizes so you don’t have to have a family sized one. My one complaint about my pressure cooker is it’s size. It’s bulky enough that I don’t have a place to store it, which means it has to sit out on my stovetop all the time. Still, given that I use it 1 or 2 times almost every day that’s OK.
I’ve been really tempted once or twice in the past to give up eating meat, but it never seemed to stick. Partly I think I just enjoy cooking and eating what I’m used to. There is nothing less attractive to me on a busy day than having to cook something unfamiliar which requires using a new recipe. So far just trying to focus on adding non-meat choices to our family diet is working much better for me. Also, at this point about 90% of the meat I eat is raised for me free-range. The beef I eat is from cows who maintain grassland on a farm owned by someone I know personally. I don’t know the precise environmental impact of my meat, but it’s not the same beast as factory farmed stuff.
We don’t have much meat in the house since the Mountain Man is vegetarian. We don’t have a pressure cooker (my mom had one – best pot roast EVER), but we do a lot with our crock pot. Although I guess it’s not exactly an energy-saver. We get a lot of soup and stew recipes from “Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.” They’re pretty good, but we found we had to double the amount of spices called for, or the stews are just too bland.