{Edit: it was based on my usual dried beans recipe}
This was enough for dinner that night and lunch the next day. So divide these costs in half to get the per-meal cost:
- 170Wh of energy
- $1.11, if my math is right:
- ~$0.24 for onion, $0.49/lb at the local mercado.
- 180g of small red beans. These were free because someone had them but couldn’t/wouldn’t cook them in their rig…
- ~$0.01 5g of salt
- ~$0.03 dried chili pepper from a bulk bag, again from the mercado
- $0.83 1/2lb of louisiana smoked sausages (hot) from the manager’s discount bin
Pressed the Beans button on the 3qt Instant Pot and forgot about it until it was done. Served with cold beer…
170Wh is super efficent for a meal that size - I’ve found that if you pre-soak the beans overnight you can cut that energy use down by almost 40% which is huge when living on limited battery/solar (been usng this trick in my setup for years).
In my particular case water the soaking water is more valuable than the additional Watt-hours. When I lived in a house with city water I did pre-soak all dry beans for the reasons you give.