With a bit of planning, a crock-pot (aka a slow cooker) can provide you with a meal in a hurry. This bean soup cooked all day while I was at work, and I just had to add a couple of things when I got home. I had some lamb broth sitting around (I made it by tossing the bones from a roasted lamb neck plus a couple of garlic cloves, a quartered onion, a couple of celery stalks and carrots with enough water to cover them into a pressure cooker and cooking for about 20 minutes once it started rocking).