A Hungry Bear

This is a great recipe that my BFF Morgan shared with me, and it couldn’t be easier. (You might also recognize Mo as the person who created every last little thing about AHB - she’s the world’s best graphic designer.) I took a pound of dried black beans - less than $1 - and turned it into 8 individually portioned servings of black beans, froze them, and have been reheating them for healthy lunches (stuffed in a little tortilla with sour cream, guacamole, and lots of salsa). The hours and hours I had to slave away in my kitchen to get these black beans to taste great was worth it though. Oh, wait - it only took me 3 minutes. 3 minutes + healthy + $1 = are you getting out your crock pot yet??

Update 5/11: And by the way, this post was selected by Alisa at Foodista for listing on their site. Thanks Alisa!

Grocery list: 1 pound dried black beans (rinsed and picked over carefully for little rocks), 1 onion, 2-4 jalapenos, 2-3 cloves garlic. Optional: dried cumin, a can of diced tomatoes, a pinch of cayenne pepper, chili powder.

Place the black beans in the bottom of the slow cooker and cover with water. (That’s a pretty ominous looking picture isn’t it?)

Thinly slice the onion and the garlic cloves.

Chop off the ends of the peppers, and slice in half.

Slice each pepper half again lengthwise, so you have quarters. Run the blade of the knife horizontally across the surface of the inside of the pepper, to scrape up the pith and the seeds.

Line up the slices of pepper, and chop.

Place the peppers, onions and garlic on top of the water and black beans. Turn the cooker on high for 2 hours, then turn it down to low and cook for another 16-20 hours. I set it up in the early afternoon so it would be ready for lunch on the next day. This way I could also check it in the afternoon and before I went to bed, to make sure there was enough water (I added more before going to bed).

The beans ended up with the perfect texture, very tender, a little bit falling apart, but still had bite. Next time I would try adding chicken stock in place of some or all of the water, or adding a can of tomatoes to supply some of the liquid. I’d also kick up the heat a little more with dried spices like cumin or chili powder, in addition to the jalapenos. Whatever you try, I don’t think you can screw up these black beans - that’s why I love a slow cooker.