Beans beans good for the heart....

Oh yeah the more you eat the more you fart.
Or you may have grown up with: Beans Beans the magical fruit... the more you eat the more you tute.
No this post is not about farting its about beans. ;) I have to tell you though the first time I sang this little diddy in front of my husband hes like.."What did you just say." When I sang it I was sure he would say, oh we sang something similar as a kid. There are a lot of the the nursery rhymes and child songs that he knows in Spanish because magically kids in both countries grew up with them. (I blame TV) But in the land of beans they didn't sing about what they do to your digestive system. Maybe that's partly because they eat them so much beans just dont have as strong and affect on the Mexican stomach of steal. Ok I said this wasn't going to be about farting didn't I.
So not only are beans good for the heart they really are magical because they are also good on your budget. this I do believe is why they are so necessary and a staple here in Mexico. You can buy a kilo of pinto beans for 10-12pesos depending on when and where you by and a kilo of black beans for only a few pesos more. Issacs mom and aunts work part of the year in a childrens home that his other aunt runs. At this home they have a huge pressure cooker. How huge you may ask. Well they cook close to three kilos of beans at a time. They serve them at dinner that night and whats left over after they cool off they freeze in packages. When one or the other is here in El Valle they tone it down a bit and do one kilo at a time but the same principle applies. You cook a lot, freeze them, and then you can have beans pretty much every night or day.
For our house I still do not own a pressure cooker, this will be remedied on some birthday or mothers day but who knows when. Really though I'm fine with out it, instead I have a medium size crock pot. I like the way the beans taste better when they have cooked and simmered in the spices all day. Pressure cookers are nice sometimes because they are so fast. When mi suegra cooks the one kilo it takes less than an hour and when I cook half kilo in my crock pot its an all day thing. Both the examples above accredit for the beans soaking the night before. But with the pressure cooker you dont even have to do that you just let them sit an extra 30min or hour in the cooker. After cooking the half kilo I'm usually able to separate it in three portions (although Em finding with the baby eating more and more its slowly turning into two portions). The first we always eat as whole beans because they are fresh. The other two get frozen and when I dethaw them they get refried.
Beans can always be kept lively and seem like a new meal every night. If you ask my husband how he likes his beans he goes into a forest gump tirade about... Whole beans and eggs, Whole beans and chorizo, whole beans and rice (maybe with some carne molido) this could go on for awhile and then he would go into refried beans with...
To be honest beans have a lot of protein and although you do still need some meat in your diet they help to replace much of what is needed. Just take a look at the guide below it says meat AND BEANS, they are one in the same as far as your nutrition is concerned. Mind you you will not get iron from them so you still need your occasional beef and such. When I moved here and found my grocery budget was much lower than it was before I was concerned that our health may suffer a bit. But to be honest thanks to the freshness of all the food we eat I think the opposite is happening. I seriously cant remember the last time I ate something that was prepackaged out of my fridge except American cheese slices.


So now with our savings gone and our for sure tight budget on food I will be working my little crock pot once or twice a week to get those beans going. The other staple that can be added to these beans that helps to add to a yummy dinner and not a lot to the price is rice. Yum beans and rice. I cant believe after two years in Mexico this is my first post on Beans.