Crockpot Re"fried" beans

I think I've mentioned before how, before I left home for college, I never tasted an onion, a pepper, or a jalapeno. The extent of my "Mexican food" was corn tortillas with ground beef (no seasoning), cheese, tomato, and iceburg lettuce.

It took the wonder of  late-night Taco Bell Mexican Pizzas to convince me that Mexican food was worth exploring.

Since then I've branched out and can truly appreciate some good Mexican (or technically I guess it's Tex-Mex) food.

In the past I've been focused on making a great entree, but a few weeks ago I spotted a recipe for crockpot refried beans that looked simple. And after fixing these, I don't believe I'll buy a can of refried beans ever again.

The thing about these beans is that they're not fried and have no fat in them. They should probably called crockpot mashed beans, because that's how you get them smooth like the canned ones. It's nice because you can mash them to the consistency you like -- some people like some whole beans in their refried beans, and some like them super smooth. You can do either with this recipe!

This makes a bunch, so make them for a crowd or use them for leftovers. You can make them a day before, too. I'd like to experiment with freezing these, but they're so good that we never have any left...

Ingredients

• 1 onion, peeled and diced
• 3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed (3 cups = one regular-sized bag)
• 1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic (see note)
• 3-4 teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 9 cups water

Directions

1. Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker. Pour in the water and stir to combine. Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed. Note: if more than 1 cup of water has evaporated during cooking, then the temperature is too high.
2. Once the beans have cooked, strain them, and reserve the liquid. Mash the beans with a potato masher, adding the reserved water as needed to attain desired consistency.

 (Note: I use dried minced garlic in crockpot recipes, because the smell of fresh garlic cloves cooking in a crockpot all day is too overpowering for me -- and I like garlic.)

 

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