I'm a frustrated engineer who was forced to drop out of school when the money ran out. I work in whatever job is stupid enough to hire me, and hope it offers me the free time to pursue my dreams of getting a degree from a tech school (I figure that college will take too long because I go part time). Anything I can dump in a slow cooker, and stuff that's easy but looks like it isn't Dad's "Slop-In-The-Pot" and my brother in law's mastery of several slow cookers for a party. Both of these MEN taught me a lot! How to prepare dry beans: Fill a GLASS jar about a quarter full of beans. Boil some water until it's going gonzo in the pot. Fill the jar with the beans full of the boiling water. Put the lid on the jar (obviously, you're going to have to be careful). Put the jar in the sink in case it doesn't seal. If that's the case, use the beans the next day. If it does, the beans will keep for a while, but I've never kept a jar until it spoiled. I made stuff other people wouldn't eat, but never anything I couldn't eat myself, so there have been NO tragedies.