Refried beans

I posted on Facebook recently that I love homemade refried beans, and got varied responses. My sister Jaime doesn't like them....so I became determined to find a recipe she would like.

My traditional recipe comes from my mom. You cook pinto beans until they're really soft (1C beans to 3C water ratio) with whole cumin seeds, in a pressure cooker or crock pot. Then I put them through my Bosch meat grinder attachment (cooking liquid and all), add some butter and a touch of salt, and bake them for 15-20 minutes to blend the flavors. I've started varying them and adding onion powder and cayenne sometimes.

Today in my quest to please Jaime's taste buds, I used pink beans instead, and cooked them with a whole onion and whole cumin seeds. After grinding them, I added butter, cayenne, onion powder, and salt. I think she'll like them, with a bit less onion powder. They have a much milder flavor than the pinto beans, and a smoother texture. They taste very similar to store-bought refried beans.


There was a casualty though. I accidentally left the pusher in with the hot beans while shoveling more into the grinder. When I pushed again, the hot plastic broke. I was devastated. I quickly pried loose any potential plastic shards and finished the batch. I'm really sad. I had to pry off even more to get the beans out of it. This end is only used for the meat grinder (the other end fits other attachments), so it's not a total loss, but still. :( I'm so mad at myself, but it is kinda old. :(
On another note, I was searching the internet for more ways to cook beans, and I decided to try sweet and sour lentils. I substituted pineapple-mango juice and added sauteed onions. They taste surprisingly decent.