The wonder of the humble bean

Around six weeks ago my housemate came back from his mum's house with two tins of kidney beans and one can of chick peas. Knowing my food tastes he said 'I won't be eating them, you can have them if you want them'.

So I stored them at the back of the cupboard, knowing I would probably use them one rainy day.
The tin of chick peas I made into a whole tub of hummus, complete with some roasted red pepper and chili flakes. This made dozens of healthy sandwiches/pittas for work when combined with grated carrot and courgette.

Then last night I really fancied doing a spot of cooking, so I whipped up some kidney bean burgers using the left over tins of kidney beans. One and a half tins made six burgers; two for dinner with some left over salsa from a fajita kit and coconut rice, two for today's lunch with leftover coconut rice, and two are in the fridge ready to be eaten as a pre-gym  snack tomorrow evening- seeing me nicely through to payday!

Here's my improvised bean burger recipe:

Ingredients (All items you can probably find lurking at the back of the cupboard or the bottom of the fridge)

• One and a half tins of kidney beans
• One mushroom
• Half a yellow pepper
• Half an onion
• Garlic powder
• Olive oil
• Italian seasoning
• Sprinkle of stuffing mix
• Flaked almonds (for added crunch)
• Flour 

Method

1. Pour all ingredients into a saucepan and leave to heat until beans are soft
2. Mash all ingredients together, use flower to thicken the consistency
3. Spoon out onto a baking tray into little round patty shapes
4. Grill/oven to cook as desired 

One step forward, three steps back....

So there I was yesterday feeling sort of smug with my month- £70 squirreled away and half my Christmas shopping done- all on about three weeks pay,and with three days worth of lunches packed into the fridge and just a few days away from my first full pay check in a couple of months and well, things took a bit of a turn for the worst on the financial front.

I woke up early to move my car as I had the day off and can't park out the front of the flat during the day as there are restrictions. After turning the key for about five minutes it was clear that Mary the micra as my sister says was not going to start. So I called the rac guy out, and spent the following hour in my pink fluffy sleepsuit, coat and boots watching him trying to get my car started. I thought it would be a simple case of me not using it enough which combined with the cold weather was making her an unhappy lady. And that the miracle mechanic man would we able to work his magic and I would have my little car back. However, after 60 minutes of failed attempts to get the ignition to work he gives up and says he'll have to tow me to the garage.

Alarm bells started ringing about the cost of the repairs and I thought about £70 would cover it- a bit annoying but I could cope with it.

After a few hours I get a phone call from the garage, waffling in technical car jargon and informing me I now owe them somewhere in the region of £270- I nearly fell off my chair :(.

So I went to the bank (Santander just to warn you!) for another complaining session- this time lodging an official complaint and I tell them I want a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience of then failing to send me my new pin number three times! Four weeks I haven't been able to user debit card (a right royal pain in the ass in the lead up to Christmas, going away for the weekend and the final straw- the car breaking!). I tried to withdraw the money for the car repair from my savings account but the woman couldn't do that so my overdraft took a battering- luckily it's interest free for another three years! I guess it's better to do that and pay it off about £50 per month then lose money in interest from the savings account. I was so looking forward to a full paycheck on Friday too, and have even got some part time bar work lined up on Saturday and over Christmas in which I hoped I could piggy bank away...

Anyways after a bit of a shitty day yesterday I was on an excel course today. I took left over fajita wraps with me, to find out lunch was going on expenses! So I had a nice pret lunch, diet coke, edamae beans and a prawn noodle salad courtesy of tmp, I got a text from my housemate telling me I had had a beautiful bunch of flowers delivered from Santander with an apology (makes me laugh how they get my address right to send flowers, but have failed three times to send a pin number!) and arrive at work to find my desk and chair decorated, with a card and two presents neatly stacked on top of it. Even the wrapping paper had been customised which I thought was nice seeing I have only been with the company about six weeks. They gave me some new reading material for the train, because they wanted to improve my choices! Hehe, so my bookcase will be happy for the latest additions to the shelf.

What a couple of days! X