low budget cuisine

soak chickpeas overnight and drain before cooking

add fresh water

bring to a boil for a few minutes

simmer for an hour

It is possible to eat healthy on a very low budget. A major way to save money is to go vegetarian. Eat beans. Try out various beans until you find the ones you like. Lohbado's menu rotates between recipes calling for chickpeas, aduki beans and lentils. There's an impressive variety of beans: black beans, kidney, pinto, green, soy...
The above pictures show chickpeas. Lentils don't need to be soaked. A cup of soaked chickpeas swells up to over three times the size of the dry beans. The beans in the above photos were soaked overnight. Toss the water. Put them in a fresh pot of water, with a bit of salt. Bring to a boil. Boil them a few minutes then reduce to a simmer. Depending on the stove and heat setting, in general about an hour of simmering should be enough. If the heat is too low, the beans won't cook properly. If it's too high, the water will boil away. Undercooked beans can be hard to digest and often create flatulence. Different beans require different cooking times. Aduki beans require about 40 to 45 minutes on average. Soy beans might take an hour and a half.

Drain the beans and then eat however you like. Chickpeas are perfect for humus. Lohbado enjoyed frying them with onions, garlic and olive oil, to serve along with rice and vegetables. Add whatever seasoning you like... for example, tahini, lemon, a dash of soy sauce.

A bag of chickpeas could last quite a while. Lohbado encountered problems with bugs in a ten pound bag of chickpeas. Buying large sacks makes them cheaper, but there's the bug problem. Buying in smaller bags for example a 900 gram (or two pound) bag solved the problem. Lohbado usually finished a small bag in about two weeks to three weeks.