I love my newest kitchen appliance. Last week I bought a 6 Quart Slow Cooker. I had been thinking about it for a while and I’m not exactly sure what pushed me over the edge. However, I woke up Sunday and decided to buy it. The main reason I was interested in buying one was so I could cook dried beans without paying too much attention to the process. Even though it’s just Jaeger and I at the moment, I got a 6 quart slow cooker so I wouldn’t have to go out and buy a larger one later once we had kids. I was a little worried that it would burn the small quantities I was cooking but so far it’s worked great.

I soak one cup of beans overnight. In the morning, I put them in the crock pot with 3 cups of water, 1/2 onion and 2 small bay leaves. I then set the time to cook on high for 6 hours and then it automatically switches to the “warm” setting until I get home from work to turn it off. This makes around 2 1/2 to 3 cups of beans.

While dried beans are much cheaper than canned beans, I wasn’t sure how much the electricity was costing. This morning Jaeger attached his Kill-A-Watt to the crock pot. Based on our electricity bill, I was able to determine that cooking one batch of beans costs us approximately $0.10 in electricity. Obviously, the initial cost of the crock pot out weighs any immediate savings using dried beans versus canned. However, I believe I can use it for other things such as soups which will probably make up the cost in convenience.

I’m having great fun experimenting. However, Jaeger is probably having less fun washing the crock pot bowl every night