Dumpster Diving and My New Obsession

About a month ago, I tossed some garbage into the dumpster at our apartment complex. Nestled on top of bags of filth, banana peels, soiled diapers, and everything else imaginable were a bunch of those family home storage number 10 cans--with food in them and seals intact. Trusting that those Mormon cans could have only come from our LDS neighbors/friends, I said to myself, "Those cans will be mine!"

I might be low enough to dumpster dive, but not in broad daylight. (It's not like I'd want to be seen. How embarrassing, right!?)

So later when Matt got home, I told him of my find and he dutifully agreed to retrieve the cans when it got dark.

Fast forward to 8:00 that night. (In the interim time we'd learned which friends had trashed the goods.)

Matt goes to get the cans and runs into said friend that had dumped the food. (SERIOUSLY, we'd waited until dark for a REASON!) My feeble attempts to mask our lowness were totally wasted! (Good thing those friends are rock-star amazing, or I really would be embarrassed.) Anyway, said friend helps Matt bring in dumpstered food, and we end up with a lot of dried beans, pasta, and rice.

So my latest obsession is cooking with beans. They're cheap; they're easy; they're healthy. Sweet!

Lucky for me, I've got some good recipes from friends.

Here's one of my favorites from Robyn that I've made a few times lately. I think Matt's secretly getting sick of it, but he won't say so.

Brazilian Rice and Beans
1 med. Sized onion, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb turkey polska kielbasa sausage, cut to 1 in. pieces
3 cans black beans—do not drain them 3 bay leaves (buy this in the spice section, very cheap)

On medium heat, cook onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add polska and cook for 2 minutes. Add black beans and bay leaves, stir. Increase heat to soft boil. Reduce heat and allow to boil softly for 15 minutes, stir every 5 minutes or so. You can serve right away, but I like to make this in the morning, and let it sit on the stove until dinner time to soak up all of the flavor. If you do this, you just turn the stove off after you have boiled them for 15 minutes. Warm up before serving. Serve with rice and top with vinaigrette if desired

Vinaigrette:
1 large tomato, diced
¼ cup diced onion
2 tbs. Olive oil
¼ cup Vinegar (white or red wine)

Combine above ingredients and stir. Gives the beans a great zing!