The title boasts a gluten-free, dairy free, kosher and halal friendly, budget conscience meal.

What is it?  Boiled cardboard?

Nope, something far more delicious.  What you failed to observe when reading the title is that no where does it boast of being healthy or calorie free.

So let’s proceed.

Because I run a school and a family from this little “casita”, (yes, “run is the correct verb here–I run the kids to practice, I run to the grocery store, I run ideas by my Facebook friends, I run. ) I can’t spend long hours cooking meals everyday.  What I do, is I cook in bulk and then re-heat as I need.

So when I buy chicken, I don’t buy one package– I buy 4 or 5.  Then I come home and boil all the chicken on the bone up.  I am left with some wonderful chicken stock and “yes, sir. yes, sir three (freezer) bags full” of cooked diced/shredded chicken.  If you leave the cooked chicken pieces to soak in their juices for a while after they have been boiled, they soak up some of that delicious home-made stock, and you don’t have to buy chicken with the mystery ingredient that says, “up to 15% solution added.”

Remember that in a recent post called “Little Bits of Loveliness” I mentioned that we were going to have a dinner that loosely translated meant “the grocery budget is spent?”  A.K.A. beans and rice.  My mom is a Southerner, so I was raised on beans and rice.  Then we moved to South America for seven years, and we ate more beans and rice.  I heart beans and rice.

My Black or Red Beans Recipe:

1)  Rinse off the beans, then add them to the Crock Pot.

2)  Dice an onion.  Press some garlic (3 cloves), and if your family will eat them, add a diced red bell pepper–they add color and taste.  Add them to the Crock Pot.

3)  Add water to the Crock Pot.  We like our beans “wet”, so I cover the beans with about 2 inches of water.

4)  Add salt to taste (2 t.) cumin (2 t.), several bay leaves (4), a dash of vinegar (2 t.), black pepper (1/2 t), and if you can handle it some hot sauce.  Now a true Southerner would not have used the word “hot sauce”, but would have said, “add a day-ash or tha-ree of McIlhenny’s”.  Because, folks, McIlhenny’s is the only hot sauce they use.  (For you Northerners it is also called Tabasco and pronounced [Mac-ill-hay-neees].

4.5) If you eat pork products, add a ham bone.  You know the one you froze in a freezer bag after Easter dinner.  If you are Jewish or Muslim or Vegan please don’t do this.

5)  If you did this in the morning, cook on high until supper.  If you did this after supper, cook all night on low.

I usually double the recipe and freeze the extra.  If you want Black Bean Dip, just puree some beans with their juice in the blender (and add a bit of lemon juice, salt, and a pinch of sugar.)

So you have your diced/shredded chicken and your beans all cooked.  Now I won’t tell you how to make rice because you already know my success in that department.

Tacitos:

Use some 100% corn tacos.

Fill them with some Mexican seasoned diced chicken, and fry them up in Canola Oil.

We had some salad left over.  I love my salad bowl.  Unfortunately a little piece broke off.  The first time this happened, I immediately glued it back on.  The second time it happened I put it in a drawer with good intentions of glueing it back on again.  That was two years ago.

Here are the beans and rice.  I ended up with sticky rice.  Now I wasn’t cooking an oriental meal, so I was shooting for dry rice, but that’s life here at Whit’s End.

However, sticky rice works well if a little guy is trying to feed himself.

Since my cheese came directly from a bag, I don’t have to worry about cross contamination for the dairy-free loved ones in my life.  The Dairy-Free People just don’t add cheese and Ranch to their tacitos.

Thankfully, my little family doesn’t have allergies.  However, Eloise did react to Ranch salad dressing.  A friend mentioned that it might be a preservative, and suggested I try fresh Ranch in the produce section.  My, but it is delicious.

And my, but it is pricey for the amount we use.  So, I dilute mine with buttermilk.  I remove half of the dressing and put it in a Tupperware container.  Then I add buttermilk until it is almost full and stir.  You will want to lick the spoon.  The dressing is creamy and mild instead of thick and garlic-y.

Now pile everything into your tacitos (give thanks) and enjoy each crunchy bite.

Enjoy with Country Time Lemonade.  Hey if The Bar J Wranglers serve it, it should be okay for my kids every once in a while.

Just wanted to share a recipe with you,

-rebecca

P.S. Remember that piece that broke off of my salad bowl two years ago?  After the photo it went back in the drawer.  Maybe next year I’ll glue it back on.

P.S. Does anyone have a good Mexican Spice Mix recipe?  I usually buy mine in those little El Paso packages.

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    Nicole York WissingI’m allergic to beef, gluten, wheat (of course) and dairy. Any suggestions??? I’m not a big pork person, but force myself to eat it. I’ve eaten so much chicken and turkey that I can’t do it anymore! I like your idea about corn taco shells, I will have to look for those.

    Yesterday at 2:08pm ·LikeUnlike
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    Lisa Kilcup Buchanan We had beans and rice last night. I heart it too! You remind me of the PW in your writing style which is why I really think you should blog all this. You could be making serious $$$! Just sayin’! 🙂