Meal Prep for Busy Days

I started my junior year of college this past Wednesday and it's shaping up to be a pretty busy semester. Between clinical rotations twice a week, a full course load of 16 credits, tutoring, and working in the students activities office at my school, I am not going to have much time to prepare nice, nutritious dinners for myself all the time. I am not a morning person, so waking up early before class to prep things isn't going to happen much, but I do go to bed a little bit later at night. Instead of watching an extra episode of house hunters most nights, I have decided to dedicate that half a hour to preparing my dinner for the next day. I gave it a try Tuesday night before I had a full class schedule the next day.

I am trying to keep my food costs low, so I found a pin on Pinterest that provided 5 recipes that would only cost $25 total to make. The first recipe was for black bean burgers and homemade fries. I am a pretty adventurous eater, so I thought I'd give the black bean burgers a shot, and it turned out that they were very easy to make and really good! Black beans are full of protein, so even though I wasn't using ground beef or poultry for the patty, they still had a substantial amount of protein in them. The fries turned out great too, really crispy and a lot less calories than frozen fries. The burgers took me about 15 minutes to prep Tuesday night, then I  took the mixture and made it into two patties. One went into the fridge and the other went into the fridge for the next day. I recommend not cutting up the potatoes ahead of time though. If done, the potatoes will turn a purple/brown and won't taste as good. While the oven was preheating, I cut up the potatoes into sticks and also prepared a side salad to go along with my dinner. If you're looking for something different, but still tasty, I really suggest trying these!

Black Bean Burger and Fries

Ingredients

• 1/2 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 can corn, rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, grated
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 1/4 loaf focaccia
• 1 Russet potato
• 1/2 Roma tomato, sliced
•  Salad mix
•  Burger condiments
•  Salt
•  Pepper

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 45 minutes
• Servings: 2

• STEP 1

  Preheat oven (or toaster oven) to 450ºF.

  STEP 2

  In a blender or food processor, blend black beans, corn, onion, garlic, bread crumbs, salt and pepper until just combined.

• STEP 3

  Form two burger patties. Set aside.

• STEP 4

  Rinse potato and chop into thin fries.

• STEP 5

  Toss fries with oil, salt and pepper. Arrange on baking sheet.

• STEP 6

  Bake fries for 30 minutes, shaking the pan half way through.

• STEP 7

  While fries are baking, grill the burger patties. Heat oil over medium heat, and grill burgers for 8-10 minutes, flipping halfway through. If you don’t have a stovetop, you can bake the burgers at 350ºF for 20 minutes.

• STEP 8

  Remove fries from the oven, assemble burger and enjoy.
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