Say YES to dried beans!

I know I mentioned recently that I've been trying to steer away from canned beans and move to dried beans!  I have been cooking them according to the packaging by soaking, then boiling.  It is super easy to do that, don't get me wrong, but someone mentioned to me that they use their crockpot to cook their dried beans.

So I tried it and it worked wonderfully.
1. Rinse beans well.
2. Put beans in crockpot.
3. Pour in enough water to completely cover beans.
4. Set crockpot on the 8 or 10 hour setting.
5. Check periodically and add water so that beans stay covered. (don't stress about this step - if you know you  are going to be gone the entire 8-10 hours just fill the water pretty full)

I separated my finished beans into 2 cup portions (a can size) and threw them in the freezer so they are ready when I need to add a "can" of beans to a recipe!