My new apartment finally has a good kitchen..with real counter space and a full-size modern oven and refrigerator!   So I started my new years resolution this weekend by cooking.  On Sunday I wanted something healthy and with no meat, so I made a “mexican” salad and baked beans for the first time ever and they turned out very tasty!  My boyfriend even had seconds.  On top of this, there were still leftovers and all of the ingredients needed came to $16!

Baked Beans

Ingredients:

2 cans of beans (The recipe called for navy beans.  I don’t know what those are and I didn’t see them at the grocery store, so I got pink beans.  They were a little large, so I’ll look for the navy beans again next time.)

1/2 cup barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray’s original.)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 medium sized onion

Directions:

1) Dice onion and then heat some olive oil on a pan and cook the onions until they are golden brown.

2) Mix onion, beans, maple syrup and bbq sauce and put in a cooking pan

3) Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes covered.  Then bake for 15 minutes uncovered.

“Mexican” salad (It’s  in quotes because that’s what the recipes I got this idea from call it, but it has feta cheese in it which is definitely not Mexican.)

Ingredients:

1 box couscous

1 medium red pepper

2 stalks of celery

2 scallions

3 oz feta cheese

16 oz frozen corn

1 avocado

5 tablespoons lime juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

some salt

Directions:

1) Cook couscous and thaw corn, then place in frig to cool.

2) Dice red pepper, celery, scallions, and avocado.

3) Mix couscous, corn, red pepper, celery, scallions and avocado.

4) Add lime juice, olive oil and salt.