What's Cooking: Black Beans in the Slow Cooker

You know what they say about beans: Beans, beans the magical fruit, the more you eat the more you...LIVE!!

I've always been a fan of a can o' beans. But these days I'm not so much a fan of the price. In my ever-evolving attempt to save us some moolah and stretch our grocery budget, I started to buy bags of dry beans instead.

Ummm...the only problem with that was I didn't want to take the time to actually cook them.

But then I discovered this great recipe for beans in the slow cooker here http://www.budgetbytes.com/?s=black+beans and I've been doing this ever since. Go there. This woman's got amazing recipes that don't cost much and can feed your whole family. There's pretty step-by-step pictures too for simpletons like me.

Now the thought of cooking beans isn't overwhelming. This is important because I get overwhelmed quite a bit for day to day things...

A big pile of laundry
Too many dishes in the sink
A too tall glass of water (damn, I gotta drink all of that...)
A bag o' dry beans (who's gonna cook that??)

I gotta break things up into manageable tasks!

Here are my ingredients:

 

Pour out your bag o' beans on a tray and sort through it as usual. Again, I didn't find anything.

After sorting, rinse the beans off in a colander under running water for a little bit just to get any dust or debris off.

Then place your beans in the slow cooker and add 5 cups of water.

Then set it on high and forget it for 4 hours...do you know how much you can get done in 4 hours??  

A lot. Or at least a nap.

After 4 hours, your beans will look like this

Take them out of the slow cooker and rinse them under water to get rid of all that bean water...

Then package them in the container of your choice and put those bad boys in the freezer.

I got three bags o' beans out of one bag of dry beans. Now, they're ready for burritos, black bean soup or as an addition to any recipe with the seasoning of your choice. I usually use mine to make burritos that I can store in the freezer for a quick lunch.

P.S.  I made stuffed plantains last night and baked a big batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I am currently obsessed with creating.