Vegetarian main dishes often require hours of chopping and cooking, and a laundry list of ingredients – but not in this dish. This easy casserole turns a can of vegetarian lentil soup into a hearty casserole with the help of nutritious, ready-to-serve whole-grain brown rice, canned vegetables, and cheddar cheese.

Because all of the ingredients go into the casserole already cooked (canned vegetables are simply cooked vegetables in a can), all they need is a few minutes in a microwave before they are delightfully done and ready to serve.

Vegetarian Brown Rice Casserole
Courtesy of Mealtime.org

Ingredients:

• 1 can (19 oz) ready-to-serve lentil soup
• 1 package (about 9 oz) ready-to-serve brown rice
• 1 can (7.75 oz) unsalted mixed vegetables, drained
• 1 large or 2 small canned roasted red peppers, diced
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided

Total cost: $7.00

Preparation time: 7 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

Preparation:
Combine soup, rice, mixed vegetables, peppers and 6 tablespoons of the cheddar cheese in a 2-quart, microwave-safe casserole or baking dish. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and level the top of the mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons cheddar cheese.

Cover and cook in a microwave oven at full power until heated through and the cheese on top melts, about 5 minutes.

Uncover and cool for 1 minute before serving.

Servings: 4
Serving size: 2 cups

Nutrition Information Per Serving: Calories 230; Total fat 8g; Saturated fat 3.5g; Cholesterol 15mg; Sodium 640mg; Carbohydrate 29g; Fiber 5g; Protein 10g; Vitamin A 110%DV*; Vitamin C 15%DV; Calcium 20%DV; Iron 15%DV

*Daily Value

Post from: Blisstree

Vegetarian Brown Rice Casserole

Then however, I had all these magazines left over. What to do? I don’t like reading them, so that’s out. I actually came up with lots of ideas about what to do with my old magazines, but my most used idea is my cookbook idea.

A lot of those magazines were women’s magazines (yawn) but most do have a rush of cool recipes. I spent a couple of hours ripping out all the recipes I wanted, then inserted them into plastic page protectors. Then I simply put them in a few notebooks (one each for, main dishes, baking, sweets). In each of the notebooks, I added some tabs to divide dish types – rice, beverages, cupcakes, etc.

Now I have these totally cool, very brightly photographed cookbooks. Much better than cookbooks you can buy. A bonus of my cookbooks is that the plastic page protectors keep ingredients off the pages. We all spill pumpkin pie mix sometimes.

My total cost: About $15 (it took a lot of page protectors) but that’s way cheaper than cookbooks full of stuff I won’t make.

If you don’t have magazines stock piled you can get some SUPER cheap:

• People always used to give me magazines for free, so you can ask your friends and neighbors.
• Thrift stores sell old magazines for soooooo cheap, like 10-50 cents per issue. Just make sure you don’t only get magazines from 1978 when whole fats were still all the rage
• Garage sales – many have cheap magazines.
• Free! Your doctor’s office (at the end of a month), your library, the dumpster or recycling center, the hair salon; plenty of places buy magazines and if you ask nicely you could score some.

This has actually helped me organize mealtime, because I didn’t add anything to the cookbooks that I wouldn’t be willing to make. It takes time to flip through a real cookbook, when half the recipes look lame. It also helped to split the books into categories. I never half to search for pasta sauce, because they’re nicely altogether. This project also gets bonus points for being green – you reuse magazines instead of tossing them.

Have you ever done this?

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

Organize A Super Cheap Cookbook