I like cooking dried beans in the oven, no-soak. I put the beans in a dutch oven (any oven-safe pot with a tight-fitting lid will work), cold water to cover by an inch to an inch and a half (an inch in a large pot, inch and a half in a smaller one), add some salt and a bay leaf, and bring it to a boil on the stove. Then I transfer it to a 250 degree oven, covered. Stir after 40 minutes and add more water if necessary. They're done 20-50 minutes later. Grand total time: usually about 1.5-2 hours.

I cooked black beans like this a couple of weeks ago, and they came out perfect. Just slightly more crunchy than canned, which means when I cook them in recipes they are the perfect texture by the end of the recipe.

I freeze the beans in 16-oz deli containers with their liquid, so each container is essentially the same size as a can of beans.

I recently cooked three bags of red beans, one using a soak-and-stovetop method, another using a no-soak slow cooker method, and the third using the oven method. The oven method worked out the best for me; less messy than the stove, and my slow cooker, at least, overcooked the beans before I noticed. I think my slow cooker runs hot, though, so YMMV.

Shir, I think the US-based site where I've been seeing the most coverage of Bet Shemesh (like, they've been covering it pretty consistently since the beginning of the school year) has been Failed Messiah [link] which has a definite axe to grind (it's a site for people who grew up in the haredi community and aren't part of it anymore -- most of them are still Orthodox, but with a lot of bitterness toward the haredi world), but on this they've seemed to have good information, so I've been wondering for a while why I wasn't seeing much coverage anywhere else in the American Jewish press. I've seen a few articles here and there, but then the press coverage just kind of exploded a few weeks ago, with everybody focusing on that little girl, Naama. (One of the videos that Failed Messiah posted a few months ago showed a man saying that the girls were dressed inappropriately because they presented a sexual temptation. Whoever was filming asked him, "So you're sexually tempted by an eight-year-old?" and he responded, "Yes." It was quite disturbing.)

I'm sorry, Mother, but your home cooking is not what fond childhood memories are made of.

oh ... your mother's cooking was like that, too? I was one of the few kids who looked forward to the school cafeteria's cooking (except for my mother's pies - she made wonderful pies ... mmmm ... pie)

It was quite disturbing

It is very disturbing, yes.

But most ultra-orthodox, even the extremist, won't answer this like that.

I don't have a lot of time now, but I'll try and respond later. Anyhow, the link you posted looks very interesting. Thank you.

But most ultra-orthodox, even the extremist, won't answer this like that.

Oh, I know that. There have been plenty of haredim who think that what those protesters are doing is disgusting and wrong. I liked one group of haredi women who gathered outside the school to give flowers to the girls as they arrived.

I'm really starting to think that cooking black beans from dried is not worth my time, energy, or the ginormous effing mess that results when they inevitably boil over. Grrr...

They're like 90 cents a can at TJs. So two cans plus Meatless Ground plus whatever tomatoey thing I can find on sale (by which I mean some kind of cheap diced tomato) and mushrooms/garlic plus a slew of spices (what I think of as a Moroccan mix: cinnamon, cloves, cumin, cayenne, allspice) and you've got a pot of veggie chili for about six bucks.

That's really similar to my chili recipe. Except I use Brooks chili beans and an extra can of red kidney beans, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, faux ground beef, and spices almost exactly like your spices.

My quick chili recipe is pretty similar, except that I usually use Ro-Tel for the tomatoes, and I don't always use the fake meat -- sometimes, it's just beans, which I suppose makes it spicy bean stew rather than chili, but whatever it is, it's good.

Oh, and speaking of good foods, I tried a recipe last night that worked out really well -- polenta stuffing. Take a tube of polenta, cut it into 3/4 inch cubes, cook in a little olive oil, then add onions and celery and garlic and thyme and sage and cook a little longer. I used the pre-cut onions and celery, so it was practically no work for a really nice side dish.

oh ... your mother's cooking was like that, too?

My former sister-in-law and I never had to hear, "I wish you'd make something my mother used to cook." It wasn't that my ex's mother didn't try; she just couldn't make food that tasted good. She was a nutritionist.

Shir, I tried to paraphrase your point of view a week or so ago on Gawker or Jezebel. They had an article about how awful the Orthodox men were being, and I pointed out that someone I knew who was actually close to the conflict didn't see it like the article did. I expected to get jumped on more than I did, in actuality, but finishing off my comment by asking for Israeli opinions probably limited the number of people who were willing to say anything.

I should have kept a link. Then again, I probably totally misrepresented you, so maybe this is better.

she just couldn't make food that tasted good

My mother's mother was an institutional cook in the Depression, I think she learned methods of stretching things and making do with very little, and quantity over quality. Or she learned to hate cooking after spending years helping her mother in various work camps.