Recipes: Beans from dry to cooked in 75 minutes!

I love beans. Green, black, kidney, soy. I love 'em. Always have. When I lived at home with my parents we had an awesome veggie garden every year and I remember being 10 or so getting hungry in the middle of the night, grabbing a flashlight and going to pick green beans from the stalk and cooking them up as a snack. Once my mom woke up and caught me outside in my nighty picking them and she just started to laugh. She asked me what kind of kid I was sneaking out to pick and cook beans at 3am when we had chips and cookies in the cupboards. I just shrugged and said I wanted beans, while chomping on a carrot I had just picked and rinsed off with the hose outside.
Now I don't have a garden and it makes me sad. I plan on starting a little rooftop garden as soon as I can afford it but for now I'm stuck with buying my veggies in a store. :(
Today I really wanted black beans. I have a variety of dried beans in my  cabinets so I grabbed a container and cooked them up as a quick snack. Now you may be saying to yourself "dried beans, quick snack? that's not possible!" I assure you it is!

Ingredients:

some sort of dried beans in any amount you want (I used black this time)
Salt (optional)
any other seasoning you may want (optional)
water

tools:

Loaf pan
tinfoil
oven

Here's everything you need to make awesome cooked beans in 75 minutes!

dump the beans into the loaf pan, add your salt and seasonings ( if using) and cover it all with water. I use a 3:1 ratio. 3 cups water to 1 cup beans and it seems to work well for me.

Cover the pan with tinfoil tightly! The point is to keep the steam in the pan so make sure you wrap the loaf pan nice and tight. Put it in the oven at about 350 degrees or so (standard baking temp) for 60-75 minutes. Check after 1 hour but be careful not to tear the foil because if it's not done then you need to wrap it up again. After the 1 hour mark, if the water is gone but the beans are still too tough, feel free to add more water, re wrap and leave it in the oven for a bit more time.

Now when I make these beans I usually make a lot and keep them in the fridge for other meals during the week. Tonight for example I am making myself chicken fajitas. I steam a chicken breast, chop up some lettuce, tomato, and avocado, throw everything into a tortilla, top it with beans, add some salsa and sour cream and dig in. it's an awesome easy dinner.
Or you can top your salad with cold beans
add to a rice dish to make dirty rice
add meat too your cooking beans to make a frank and beans dish but healthier
Use the beans as a side instead of pasta or potato
eat them plain as a snack like i do....