Kicking the Can (of beans)

We always stock up on cans of black beans when we find a really good sale on them. They're great for adding to quesadillas and burritos, and they're super healthy too. We learned some things the hard way though. The sale/store brand beans had ingredients other than just beans and water (and I don't mean spices). They're canned right? What else do you need in there?

What really got our goat was that after draining the "liquid" from the can, we were left with half a can or less of actual beans. By comparison, the regular/name brand cans of beans had less "ingredients" and more beans. Sometimes, every so often, you do get more when you pay more. More of the good and/or less of the bad. Of course, good healthy food does seem to cost more on the whole than the unhealthy junk. So that really shouldn't surprise me. But... beans?

Well, we finally finished off the last of those bargain beans the other day and it hit me that instead of buying more cans, I could just buy dried beans and cook them myself. And in the interest of our utility bill, I found that I could cook them in the crock pot for even less. Thanks to the instructions linked-to below, I have pre-measured baggies of cooked black beans in our freezer, and more space in our pantry. Not to mention more coin in our pocket... and that's always a good thing.

Cooking Dried Beans In The Slow Cooker from the Crockpot365 blog