not really a recipe at all - cost of black beans from scratch

I'm always curious how dried beans translate to cooked beans in quantity.

Last night I cooked 2 lbs of dried black beans (in the crockpot, which is the best way ever to do it because you don't have to watch it - also the texture is good) and came up with about 11 cups cooked. This included a little bit of liquid but it was mostly solid beans.

Canned black beans claim to be 3.5 servings of 1/2 cup each, which translates to 1 3/4 cups. So for $2.77 of dried beans, I got a bit over 6 cans' worth. So a bit less than 50 cents a "can." Not a huge bargain, probably, since you can generally find beans for $1 a can or maybe 89 cents, but:

a) doing this induces me to eat more beans because I have them around
b) my beans were organic, that's something
c) cans sometimes contain BPA; my beans do not
d) metal cans feel wasteful in general
e) you can probably find dried beans for less than the $1.39/lb that mine were.

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