I {heart} rice and beans!  Mostly because they make SUCH cheap meals!  Even larger families or families with older children could make a meal with rice and beans that’s less than $5!  I encourage everyone to incroporate a rice and beans…or other vegetarian style meal into their weekly meal plan.  Just an easy way to save a few bucks each week!

I {heart} my slow cooker!  I really, really do!  Probably not quite as much as Steph {hearts} hers ^[5], but I do love it! 

Here’s the sitch…whenever I’m making something “new” in the crockpot, I always stop to see if Steph (aka the Crockpot Lady) has made something similar…and what tips or tricks she might have!  So I stopped by here ^[6] this morning…because I’ve not made rice and beans in the slow cooker before…and of course, she had ^[7]!  I wanted to do black beans and rice with diced tomatoes…and her recipe was pretty similar!  I learned that the rice would cook faster than I thought, so I didn’t start this until just before lunch!

Here’s my version. 

Ingredients
1 cup black beans ($.40)
1 Tbsp olive oil ($.10)
1 cup brown rice ($.40)
2 garlic cloves, crushed ($.10)
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes ($.59)
1 tsp ground cumin ($.05)
Salt/Pepper
3 corn cobs ($.51) On sale last week for $.17 an ear… And I bought 20 ears…thinking we’d eat them at the kebab party…but we didn’t, so now I’m stuck with a LOT of corn to eat!

Directions
1. Soak beans overnight in water.  In the morning, drain and rinse.  Cook soaked beans for an hour in a saucepan with at least 2 inches of water over the beans.  (I prefer to cook my beans before adding them to the slow cooker.  You can certainly cook them in the slow cooker…details here ^[8]!)
2. Place olive oil into slow cooker. Stir rice around in the olive oil. Add cooked black beans (substitute 2 15 oz. cans), diced tomatoes, garlic cloves, ground cumin, salt and pepper AND 2 cups of water. Set on high for 6 hours. I set mine for 6 hours because I used brown rice. If you use white rice, set it for 4 hours.  This would be DELICIOUS topped with some monterrey jack cheese…or even cheddar.  Since we’re dairy-free, I would have…but think that would be delish!
3. Boil corn in large saucepan for 4-5 minutes.  Serve with butter, if you like.
4. Serve Slow Cooker Black Beans and Rice with Corn Cobs.

Cost $2.19

(It doesn’t get much cheaper than that y’all!)

P.S. I’m whisking away to San Antonio for some cookbook business…I’ll be back Friday. I’ve got a delicious treat for you all tomorrow!