09:14 – We had Jen’s Bean Gloppita recipe for dinner last night. I’m not much of a vegetarian, but it was pretty good. Barbara wasn’t able to find coriander at the supermarket yesterday, so we made it up without it. I tried to convince Barbara that bacon was a reasonable substitute for coriander, but she wanted to try the Gloppita as the original vegetarian recipe. We made up a half of the original recipe, which makes a very large pile of Gloppita. There was enough left that I’m having the left-overs for dinner tonight.
I was thinking about ordering some dry black beans and repackaging them for long-term storage, but I think instead I’ll just buy the canned version. The nice thing about the canned beans is that they’re ready to use right out of the can. Just open the can, drain them, rinse them, and they’re ready to go. Dry beans need pre-processing, which is time- and fuel-intensive. Even if you soak the beans overnight, you’re still supposed to boil them for an hour. In an emergency, that’s a significant amount of fuel. The downside of canned is that a one-pound can of the beans costs $0.60 to $1.50+, depending on brand and vendor, versus maybe $1.50/pound for dry black beans. And most of that can is water weight. I’m guessing that on a dry-weight basis, that can of beans probably costs $4 to $5/pound. On balance, I think I’ll store a few cases of the canned for regular use and maybe 30 pounds of the dry beans in foil-laminate bags that we’ll reserve for SPMF emergencies.
Barbara is cleaning house this morning and then heading over to volunteer at the historical museum this afternoon. We’ll wait and do more kit stuff tomorrow.