Slow Cooker Black Bean Tacos

Who doesn't love tacos? Extraterrestrials? Fascists? Gargamel from the Smurfs? Probably, but you don't want to hang out with them, do you? Of course not. You want to eat delicious tacos.

I've been looking to ditch canned beans for awhile, but my one reservation was the pre-soaking step. I like flexibility -- what if I decide I don't feel like a bean dish after I've already soaked the beans? Plus, my track record for remembering to do things before I stumble off to bed isn't exactly stellar.

Enter Smitten Kitchen's recipe for black bean soup. Slow cooker beans with no pre-soaking? Now we're in business!

My favorite way to use black beans is in tacos, so I decided to make my taco filling in the slow cooker instead.

Wedding present we still use

Four hours in the slow cooker and the beans came out PERFECT. Tender, but not mushy and full of more flavor than you could ever get from a can. And no pre-soaking involved! It was cooking magic.

Notes: I like to do a black bean and corn combo for my taco filling. Since corn is in season, I used fresh ears. I like to roast them first, which is an easy task.

Cooorn, corn on the cooooob!

Preheat the oven to 350, throw the ears in there, husks and all. I don't even put them on a baking sheet. 30 minutes later, you have delicious roasted corn. Just let them cool so you can pick them up to cut off the kernels.

This recipe ended up to be accidentally vegan. I hadn't intended it to be; it just so happened that I didn't use any animal fats or byproducts.

It turns out slow cookers vary pretty widely in terms of cooking time. If you've got a small one or an old one, I would try 6 hours instead of four. Ours is relatively new and gets nice and hot, so 4 hours was just fine.

Ingredients:
1 lb dried black beans (I used the Camellia brand)
2 small onions, sliced
6 cups hot tap water
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 heaping tablespoon of chilli powder
1 1/2 tablespoons of cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 heaping tablespoon of kosher salt (sounds like a lot, but beans need salt)
15-20 drops of Tabasco
1 capful of liquid smoke
3 large ears of corn, roasted (see notes above)
Pepper to taste

Directions:

Dump beans into colander. Pick out any broken or shriveled beans and discard. Rinse beans and let them drain.

Put beans in the slow cooker. Assemble all other ingredients except corn and put them in the slow cooker. Stir. Set slow cooker on high for 4 hours (see notes above).

While beans are cooking, roast corn. Allow it to rest and cool. Remove kernels from cob. Add them to the slow cooker during the last hour or 30 minutes of cooking time.

Serve in your favorite taco shells and enjoy!