Slow Cooker Beans and Franks

It could have been a tragedy - this was my plan for last night, and I followed the recipe for Beans and Franks here pretty much exactly, but this time, instead of cooking things too fast, the slow cooker was taking to long (actually, when it comes to dried beans, so much depends on the age of the beans, and I guess that m little bag of navy beans - new as it was to me, spent some time sitting on the grocery shelf).

At any rate, by 7pm, it was very clear that these beans weren't going to be ready until about 11 - and if I didn't have my meal plan figured out for the week, that would have meant cold cereal and an apology for dinner.  Instead, I pulled out the ground turkey, and a can of refried black beans, did some fast chopping, and we had Gorditas and black beans instead.  Whew!

The nice thing about that is that once the beans were done, I stowed them in the fridge for tonight, and so tonight was a nice simple meal - and the beans benefited by a day of refrigeration - the flavors are rich and melded together nicely.  I am freezing a portion for another meal later, and in spite of the unexpected complication, the week's plan is right on track.