Dry Black Beans in a Slow Cooker

This is another super useful (and easy!) method that I learned from Budget Bytes. 

There is something super satisfying about buying a bag of plain old dry beans, and turning them into a useful ingredient to keep stocked in your freezer or fridge. You can save a lot of money (she calculated that cooked beans from dry are about half the cost of canned), but I think the real savings comes in the fact that you can freeze in containers for whatever size you will need for a future meal. So, if you have a small family that won't use an entire can, you won't find yourself wasting (or overeating to finish it up) just because the cans are always one standard size.

Balsamic Chicken in a Slow Cooker

This is one of the first recipes I made when I started this blog last November. However, that was before I was taking the time to post photos and full descriptions. I went back to make it again and discovered that the original website that I got it from no longer exists! So, here's a full post with the ingredients I use and steps for how I make it. It's a really good, healthy meal that's super easy and uses stuff I always have on hand. 

Baked Beans in a Slow Cooker

This is a recipe that I just made on a whim one day after seeing it on Budget Bytes, because it seemed easy and cheap. To my surprise, it became one of our favorites, with John requesting that I always keep our freezer stocked with these beans! He loves them so much that he sometimes just eats them as a snack. And happily enough, they are plenty easy to make in big batches.

Shredded Mexican Beef

When I was grocery shopping this weekend, I had a craving for some red meat. I remembered recently coming across a recipe for shredded taco beef on my favorite food blog (Budget Bytes), so I went ahead and picked up a roast so I could try it out. 

Whole Chicken in a Crockpot

It really doesn't get much easier than this. Today, I cooked an entire chicken in a crockpot.