Tuesday's Tip - Slow Cookers

“The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.”

I couldn't find a picture of a turquoise slow cooker but this recipe is so easy you can sit back and sip your coffee while it cooks.  So, I thought the coffee maker would be appropriate.  Plus it was just too darn cute to pass up!  On a side note make sure you take time weekly to relax.  Cooking shouldn't be a chore or a stress maker, think of it as a stress reliever.  Turn on your favorite music or your favorite TV show and enjoy them while you cook.  Pay attention to the repetitiveness while you chop and don't let the small "mistakes" stress you out.  A mistake for you might just turn into a wonderful new recipe.  Today's tip is for slow cookers. If you are married you probably have one somewhere as I know I was given 3 at my wedding showers.  So the first tip is to find the slow cooker if you never use it and clean it up.

Using a slow cooker is a great way to cook beans without paying a fortune or consuming a boatload of salt.  If you buy canned beans now more than likely you pay  more than you would for dried beans and canned beans are preserved with salt, which doesn't help your heart.  So as a money saving and heart saving tip, start buying dried beans.  They are about $1 a bag and make several servings.  I had bought dried beans but honestly was hesitant about making them because they took so long.  If you read the back of the bag you have to soak them overnight and then (depending on the bean) cook them for several hours on the stove.  If you're like me sometimes you don't prepare far enough in advance to soak something overnight and probably don't have enough time to stand over the stove for several hours while they cook.  I wanted to come up with an easier way to use these beans so I decided to try the slow cooker.  To my surprise it worked perfectly!  I didn't have to soak the beans and they could cook all day or all night and I didn't have to do a thing!  If you can't already tell by my exclamation points I was so excited that I had figured this out. The other night I decided to try out one of my favorite beans - black beans to see how they would turn out.  I was pleasantly surprised and had to share.  

Slow Cooker Black Beans:

 

Ingredients:

1 bag of black beans

1/2 cup of chopped chicken sausage

1 onion diced

1 garlic clove minced

1 can of rotel

1 TBSP cumin

1 TBSP sea salt

1 tsp pepper

Pick through beans (This is so important to do!  In the sorting process small gray stones can get mixed in with the black beans - I had 4 in my bag!!! You can imagine how unpleasant this would be to bite down onto)

Rinse beans under water

In crock-pot combine all ingredients

Cook on low for 9 hours (if beans are not soft enough cook for an additional hour)

Serve

One of my favorite ways to serve black beans is a "black bean bar" make some rice (I love the taste of brown rice with black beans) and have an assortment of toppings including chopped onions, hot sauce, sour cream, cheese, etc... Place this out so that others can build their beans to their liking. On a side note I often use a ham hock in my black beans but I didn't have any, the husband had bought some sort of chicken kielbasa so I chopped that up and used it and it worked perfect but feel free to use whatever meat you like.

Here's to easy, healthy, cheap recipes that don't require much work!  Enjoy!!!