By Joe Yonan Food and Dining Editor January 12 at 1:29 PM

Sometimes, more than anything, you need something easy. Easy to make, easy to eat. Maybe its because youre exhausted from holiday traveling, or maybe its because youve just gotten over a little bout of sickness that has left you a little woozy.

Maybe, as was my case a couple of weeks ago, its both.

Was I ever glad to have such an overstuffed (if not exactly well-organized) pantry, fridge and freezer. It meant that when I was tired of road food, then even more tired of eating takeout on the couch as I recovered, and ready to (gently) get back into the kitchen, I had some options that didnt require a trip to the store or an order from a grocery delivery service.

At the top of my list of thank-goodness-I-have-this ingredients are beans, cooked from dried, and refrigerated or frozen in their cooking liquid. I cant stress enough to the unconverted how much different these taste from the canned variety, and how happy youll be to have them if youve planned a little in advance and cooked up a pot. I do it every week or two, and I never regret it.

As it turns out, I had the chance to prove the difference to myself, all over again. A helpful colleague made for me a batch of a potato-bean stew, recipe courtesy of the inimitable Mollie Katzen, using canned (and rinsed and drained) pinto beans. Perfectly satisfying. Then a few days later, I made the same thing, using a few cups of beans I thawed from the freezer, plus the elixir that is almost as good as the beans themselves: the flavor-charged liquid they had cooked in.

This time, it was sublime. And thanks to that overstuffed freezer, it was every bit as easy.

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Weeknight Vegetarian: The freezer and home-cooked beans come to the rescue