SLOW-COOKED REFRIED BEANS

A friend posted that she made these beans and they were very good.  Thought I would share this old recipe from Six Sisters with you.  Personally, I won't eat anything with all that chicken broth, but I will try them with vegetable broth.  My friend said rather than mash them she left them whole.  I think this is a recipe each of us can personalize to suit our own family's taste.

Slow Cooker Refried Beans
Ingredients:
1 onion, peeled and halved 
3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed 
1/4-1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (I used about 1/4 because I wanted my kids to eat it and not think it was too hot) 
2 tablespoons minced garlic 
3 teaspoons salt 
1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper 
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin (optional) 
5 cups water 
4 cups chicken broth

Directions: 

-Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker. Pour in the water and chicken broth 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.

-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.

 -If you want to turn this into a big batch of bean dip, add the following: 

 2 cups salsa

2 cups shredded Colby Jack cheese

2 cups shredded pepperjack cheese

8 oz. cream cheese

16 oz. sour cream 

2 Tbls chili powder

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

Mix in with the beans and let cook a couple hours longer so flavors can blend. Makes a huge batch so just freeze leftovers!