Refried Black Beans

Refried Black Beans

Once the beans are soaked, fry & boil down 3 times for a total of about 1 ½ hours
1 lb Uncooked Black Beans
2 C Beef Broth
1 ½ TBSP Garlic
1 Onion, minced
Olive Oil

Clean (sort out bad beans and rocks, if any) and wash beans. Soak overnight (I turn the crockpot on low for this soak something like 10pm to 8am). Dump, Rinse and cover with water and half of garlic. Cook until soft (6-8 hrs in crock pot on low). Puree 2/3 of beans & a little bean "juice" in food processor (or mash with potato masher (they slipped right through a mixer)) and leave 1/3 beans whole. Put beans (whole & mashed) in skillet. Add onion & garlic. Boil down using extra bean “juice”. When it's a little drier than you want bean dip to be (like penut butter consistency add broth 1 cup at a time, stir in, and boil down again. If the beans get too wet, it boils hard and splatters more. After broth boils down, add oil to "fry beans" (stir the oil in). You have to stir a lot, about every 10-15 minutes to keep them from sticking. As they get drier, they stick more. When they fry down to about the right consistency, or a little moister than is quite perfect, turn them off and let them cool enough to put them in quart freezer bags. The longer they cook, the sweeter they taste (if using fresh onion). It’s good for a cleaning day – when you’re home, but mostly occupied (so you don’t resent the time stirring – I HATE STIRRING!) and so you pass by your burning beans, just in time to stir them again. This is the way I cook them. I make a double batch in my 5qt crock-pot. I serve them with any mexican dish.

VARIATION : In a stoneware dish, toss in every Mexican ingredient you can cook – cheese, sour cream, salsa, olives?, cooked chicken in taco seasoning?, taco beef? Whatever you have left – and a couple of cups of these refried beans. Then bake them for 30-60 minutes. Serve with chips.

This is my beloved and this is my friend. – Song of Solomon