What's In Your Wallet Butter Bean Stew Recipe & My most recent trip to Dollar Tree!

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    My apologies!  I originally called this project "What's In Your Wallet Wednesday," but it has consistently been more and more difficult for me to get my videos done by Wednesday, so I'm just calling it the "What's In Your Wallet" project and I'll be posting these posts on whichever day that I can! 
         I know that it has been a bit since I last posted a shopping trip to Dollar Tree, so today I am sharing the long awaited use of the Butter Beans from my first grocery shopping trip there, plus a few tips on staples that are available that you will be able to use to enhance your pantry at a budget price!  So click "Read More" and check out today's video and tips! 

Garden Products Update:
In this video about growing food from home, I tried out a few products that I purchased from Dollar Tree and I want to give you an update about those.  

1. Dollar Tree does have soil in right now!  Yay!  I show it in the video below!  Good price and good brand! 
2. None of the grow kits every spouted for me, so I would not buy those again!
3. The seeds did sprout, so those are a great buy! 

Grocery Update:

• This trip I saw that Dollar Tree has corn tortillas as well as the flour tortillas that I purchased before! 
• They carried regular long grain as well as Jasmine Rice in 2 pound packages!  Both were priced at $1.50.  A 2 pound package of rice at my grocery store is $1.79 for the store brand, so Dollar Tree beats that.   But, 5 pounds is only $3.79, so that would be the better deal if you can afford to spend that much in one trip.   As far as the Jasmine Rice goes, the $1.50 for 2 pounds is the best deal I've seen.
• Del Monte diced tomatoes is a staple that is almost always available at Dollar Tree.  But, you can almost always find them cheaper at the regular grocery store.
• Seasonings: $1.25 is generally a good buy for seasonings.  But, occasionally  you can find some of the basics for less at the regular grocery store.  I haven't tested yet how the strength and flavor compares with the regular stores prices.   

       On this Dollar Tree trip, I purchased 1 bag of the 2 lb. rice, 1 package of corn tortillas and 2 cans of kippered herring, which I forgot to mention that I found for $1.50 per can.  I love kippered herring.  I remember it from my youth and I don't get it often, but $1.50 seemed like a good price to me, so I treated myself.

The Video
I'm going to post the video, and then I will tell you more about the Butter Bean Recipe: 

I had some bacon in my fridge, so I browned up a few pieces to add some of the great flavor to my stew.

I chopped the bacon into bite sized pieces.

Because I had tomatoes that I had canned earlier this year, I opted to use those in my stew. I didn't drain them. If you use tomatoes in a different form, you will need to add liquid to your stew.

When all of the main ingredients are in the pot, let it simmer as you add your desired seasonings.

The Butter Beans are big, buttery textured and have a hearty mouth feel. This is a very satisfying and tasty stew! (I mean, it has bacon in it!)

Look at how big those beans are! We ate this for a hearty lunch!

      I looked up a lot of recipes using Butter Beans, and there are many variations.  Because I always say that first you should look at what is in your pantry before you shop, that is what I did.  I wrote the recipe accordingly, giving you alternatives to some of the ingredients that I used.  For example, I used bacon in my stew, but you could use that Spam-like luncheon loaf that Dollar Tree carries, or the smoked sausage!  Here is a list of ingredient exchanges for this recipe:

• Bacon or Spam or Smoked Sausage
• Canned cherry tomatoes or diced canned tomatoes or fresh tomato
• Juice from canned tomatoes or extra water or tomato or other bullion 
• Italian Seasoning or simply salt and pepper or Smoked Maple Seasoning or any other seasoning you think sounds great, or fresh herbs like basil or oregano simmered in for a bit.
• White onion or red onion or chopped green onion and/or bell pepper diced

Can you think of other examples of what you would add?
      The butter beans look like a giant, yellow lima bean.  They are much bigger than I thought they would be.  The garlic, onion and bacon certainly add to the flavor of these already seasoned and hearty beans. 

Be sure to click on the recipe to get the PDF to print! Let us know how you like it!

Other Posts and Videos you may enjoy:

• Inexpensive Ways to Grow Food For Your Pantry
• Budge Pantry Recipe Update
• Intro to What's In Your Wallet
• Crockpot Pantry Stew