Salty Chihuahua

Can someone please tell YJDKIY how this:
can equal this:
That's $87.25. At the lower priced store no less! I need some grocery budget tips, apparently. About 1/16 of the contents of those four bags went into dinner tonight.

Dinner, which started out innocent enough, almost became a disaster.


Black bean cakes over southwestern salad was the menu. To save time, I pulled out the Cuisinart Mini-Chopper.
Unfortunately, I haven't mastered the art of chop/grind and everything ends up more like blend/puree. This happened when I tried to make salsa too. So anyway, the recipe was good, but I recommend hand mashing the beans and hand chopping the pepper, onion and garlic finely. Normally you'd get a nice pastey cake to sear in a frying pan on med-high heat for a few minutes on each side. Instead I got a watery, dip like bowl of stuff. I even tried to add flour/bread crumbs and egg to help. No luck. While I contemplated how to fix this, two salty chihuahuas disappeared.


The salad turned out beautiful. Shredded red lettuce, cucumber slices, corn, red pepper, olives and avocado slices. The dressing is garlic rice vinegar, olive oil, lime juice, agave, pepper, garlic powder and cumin. Don't measure, just guess.



The bean dip patties worked out ok after I turned the heat down and let them cook for about 10-15 minutes on each side to get out the moisture. Contents, again not measured, are smashed black beans, sweet onion, green pepper, fresh garlic, and cumin.

Place hot cakes on salad, top with grated jack and chopped tomatoes, served with a side of Near East Spanish Rice that I ended up mixing in my salad. Yum!