I don't remember who exactly suggested this blog (it was someone here, on a blog, or in a comment to a blog):
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com
but it is pretty good. I like to cook using the crock pot, especially in the summer.

One post she had was how to make beans:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/cooking-dried-beans-in-crockpot.html

I never knew how to make dried beans...I was always scared to try. But her post made it look so easy.

I bought two bags of dried black beans this week, and on Thursday night I picked through them to make sure there weren't any split ones, or shriveled ones. I just dumped them out on our kitchen table, and sorted through them...took probably 10 minutes. I put both bags-worth in the crock pot, and waited until Friday.

I have a crock pot that has a removable bowl, so it is really easy to clean. (I have two of those in fact). If you are buying one, I suggest to get one like this...you can soak it to clean it, instead of having to worry about the cord on other kinds.

Friday, when I got home, I covered them with water, so it had about 2" worth above them. I put the crock in the refrigerator. That step took like, um, 2 minutes. Most of that time was finding room in the refrigerator. The blog said to soak them 6 hours in the refrigerator to keep germies from growing. We were going out last night, so I figured I would rinse them when I got home...

Well, I forgot about them until about 11:30 this morning! Oops. They really swelled, almost to the top of the crock. I rinsed them, put them back in the crock, filled it up with water, and cooked them on high until around 6:00. The directions said to do it for 8 hours, or bite tender, but they really smelled good, so I tried them. They were ready, as far as I could tell. And they tasted good. I rinsed them again, and decided since I already had the crock pot dirty with beans, I might as well use it to make supper with.

I put 4 cups worth of beans, 1 can of corn, 1 small can of mushrooms, a jar of salsa, a can of chicken broth and 2 cups of uncooked brown rice in the crock pot, and put it on high. I didn't drain anything, just dumped the cans in. I thawed out some chicken and put that in there too. On high, that should only take about 4 hours to make. I love that meal! Put some salsa on it, and some sour cream, and it just tastes awesome. Then, the next day, you can use it in tortillas to make burritos. The flavors really go well together.

After I used the first 4 cups for tonight's meal, I rinsed the rest of them again with cold water and put them in ziploc baggies, 2 cups each (she said one can was 1 2/3 cups, but my recipes aren't precise enough to bother with 2 measuring cups, so I just used a 1 cup measure twice). I got 4 of those baggies worth, flattened them out some (so when they were frozen they would stack better, and to get the air out of the bags, but not enough to actually squish the beans) and put them in the freezer. That step took, maybe 5 minutes.

So, even though I started them at 6:00 p.m. yesterday and they weren't in the freezer until 6:00 p.m. today, I only spent less than 20 minutes doing anything with them.

I will definitely do this again. But since I have two crock pots, I will probably get 4 bags of beans and split them up between the two. It was really easy, and I know that there isn't any extra ingredients (like salt or preservatives or that goopy icky stuff on the bottom of the cans when you use canned beans). Doing 4 bags won't make much difference in time.

So, whoever turned me on to that website, thanks a lot!