Simple Homemade Refried Beans

As I pointed out in a previous post, I kind of, sort of, like Mexican food...alot. Although, up until the last few years, I shied away from refried beans. I mean, come on, it looks kind of gross. And it's beans, the things I swore to my mother I would never eat.

(Side note-do NOT ever say "NEVER" because the good Lord above will make you eat those words! I know from experience....)

However, when you eat out at a Mexican restaurant, most dishes come with rice and beans. EEWW! So at some point some of these refried beans would wind up mixed with my meal and I'd end up eating some. Wow. They aren't that bad mixed with rice, salsa, cheese and whatever else is left on my plate. Next thing I knew, I was sneaking a can or two of this stuff that reminded me of what I feed my dogs into the cart at the grocery store....

So, where is this post going, you ask? Well, I finally decided I could not stomach using a can opener and spooning the beans out of the can. It just reminded me of stuff I did not think humans should eat. I knew there had to be a recipe somewhere that was not complicated. And there is!

I did not find this recipe from Pinterest! I subscribed to a blog Once A Month Moms, where they have mastered once-a-month cooking (and I have not!) One month they featured a recipe for "Refried Black Beans" What? Hello! I clicked on that link and low and behold you cook these looking boogers in a crock pot and then put through a food processor and BAM! Refried Beans. 

This is the adapted recipe for Slow Cooker Refried Beans - (which I can  no longer find on their site. I guess that is due to changes they made regarding free vs. paid memberships....)

1 lb of Black Beans (I use Pintos)
1.25 cups chopped onion
2 Tbsp minced garlic
5 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
9 cups water
storage containers or freezer bags

 Place all ingredients into a slow cooker. Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed.

Once the beans have cooked, strain them, reserving the liquid. (Now, I don't do this. I just scoop them out with either a large spoon or a slotted spoon. I am a klutz in the kitchen and can imagine puddles of bean juice all over the place!)

Mash the beans with a potato masher or puree in a food processor (which is what I do), adding the reserved liquid to attain the desired consistency.

Eat immediately, or portion the beans into freezer bags or containers and freeze. To Serve, thaw, reheat in the microwave or on stove top.

I use plastic storage containers and freeze. I pull one out whenever we are having a Tex-Mex meal. The best thing is that my kids LOVE these! When I was their age, I would have a hard time even sitting at the same table with a dish of refried beans....

Enjoy! And "Happy Spring"...I think. It has not really shown up here, yet.

Confessions Of A "Meal Plan" Failure

I absolutely love the idea of planning plans and menus. I get super excited when I think about how "stress-free" my days will be because I have supper planned, somewhat cooked ahead, or ready for a crock pot.

I began over a year ago, sitting down with a spreadsheet, sheets of paper and a sharp #2 pencil and trying to jot down what we usually eat, how frequently we eat it, and what I use to make those meals. Then I started filling in the upcoming month with those meals.  Then I tried to equate that into a shopping list. OH. EM. GEE!! I think my head will explode!

At some point, I became overwhelmed, depressed, and felt like somewhat of a failure. Sure, it was 'nice' to know what was on tap, but what if I did not want "Minute Steak and Gravy" for supper on that particular night? What if I was tired and all I could muster was browning some ground beef and making tacos or sloppy joes?  My calendar looked like a toddler's drawing with scribbles, scratches and erasure marks....And maybe even a few tear stains.

I am too much of a 'rebel' to follow a list line for line. My tastes differ from what the calendar says and some days, I'm just too tired to do whatever it is that I am supposed to do and other days, I just feel rebellious.

So, I kind of kicked the "meal planning" to the curb. But, I have not given up completely. I have found some success in making "freezer bags" of meals that go into the crock pot. Now this is an idea I can get used to! There are several resources online - blogs, Pinterest, etc. Now, these ladies still are way too organized for my likes, but I have learned to adjust their concept to me.

Basically, anything you toss in the crock pot, can go in the freezer bag. Hello! It is that easy!

All those recipes floating around cyber-space! If you would toss it in the crock pot, then toss it in a bag and put it in the freezer!

What I do is pick several crock pot recipes we like, grab the ingredients on one of my shopping trips and come home and make my bags. Now, the hard-core, super-savers will wait for sales, coupons days, etc and really go to town. I just cannot do that with our current situation, but back to the topic.

A few things I have learned doing this -
1. "Everyone" talks about flattening bags, stacking neatly, etc. There are pictures of pretty, neatly stacked bags filling a freezer...Not mine! It is just not practical when you think about pulling the bag out of the freezer and trying to fit a large square block of frozen food and liquid into the proverbial round dish of your crock pot. The block sticks out the top and the lid will not fit. So, my freezer does not look very "neat", but I can drop the block of frozen goodness more easily into the crock pot and forget about it.

2. Seriously, anything you put in the crock pot on a 'normal' day, can be packaged up and frozen. Chicken dishes, savory beef dishes, soups, etc. I started with meals from one blog, but then realized that the stack of "other" recipes I use in the crock pot would work too.

3. The ladies on the various blogs talk about how they spent 4 hours in the kitchen chopping, dicing, slicing and packing to get 100 meals in bags...Do not let this overwhelm you. Start small, try a few new things. Make a list of ingredients to buy for say 10 meals or even 4-6, (Do not forget the bags!) and try it. If it works, then increase or decrease based on how it fits into your family's schedule and taste.

My favorite recipe so far is the Santa Fe Chicken from SkinnyTaste. Another site with great recipes is Six Sisters Stuff.

So, if cooking "once a month" or planning a month's worth of meals "scares" you, give this a try.

The Backyard Boogeyman

Being a former city-girl, living in the country, sometimes my fears of the outdoors get the best of me....

During the day, I LOVE my yard! chickens, dogs, cats, trees, dirt, grass, you get the picture. But at night, I sometimes let the absolute darkness get to me. My friends and I joke about mountain lions, bigfoot, wolverines, and lions, tigers and bears, Oh my! But I rarely go running in the dark...And I will adamantly say it is for the fear of tripping, falling and blowing out my knee on the washboard dirt road!

Anyway, we came home the other night and it was dark. No biggie. I run to the backyard to close up the chickens for the night. I come around the back of the house and STOP dead in my tracks. My alert is on. All I can make out is something where there was not anything the night before. I stand there and try to get my brain to process what it could and could not be. All I could come up with is the neighbor's dog. I call his name, but it was not moving and he knows when he sees me that he should not be trying to court my girls and he moves along. I was stumped and starting to panic a little.

All I could think to do was not scream and get inside and get a flashlight. I do and by now, the whole family is all in my business "What are you doing?" "What is wrong?" and so I am kind of "busted" when we flash a light on it and this is the big, bad, boogeyman in my backyard....

Yep, it will be a long time before I live this one down....

Backyard Predators

I started out on another blog sharing the escapades of my chickens. They were hilarious! They had such personalities. I had to close that blog because my free-ranging friends had a dinner date with a predator and they did not know it. After a chicken hiatus,

Fast-forward to 2013. I have chickens again. We are in a new location and I have decided to keep my chickens penned for now. Here's why -

 This sweet, loving, cow dog has an unquenchable taste for chicken...and not just the scraps I share with her...

 This is a juvenile Golden Eagle. It is one of a pair and they have been hanging around this winter scavenging for food....

 I could not tell if this is an adult Golden or a juvenile Bald. It was just freaking big.

 A chicken hawk, who decided to sit outside my window for quite a while....

Not a great picture, but, it is of two bald eagles in the pastures behind our home....

I do not have a picture of the Great Horned Owl that is in the tree row behind the house. I have seen him and heard him on numerous occasions. Only, I did not realize it was an owl. On more than one occasion, I have heard something honking in the trees. It did not sound quite like a goose, which migrate through here, but I could not figure out what it was. One evening, when my guinea men disappeared, I heard the honking again. I ventured out behind the piles of fallen trees and saw this owl. It honked a few more times and flew to another tree. BIZARRE! I had never heard that before and still could not attribute the honk with the owl. After some research online, I discovered that Great Horned Owls will growl at you and it sounds like a HONK! It must have snatched a guinea and I was keeping it from enjoying its supper...

So, my girls will be confined to their coop until I can figure out how to discourage the birds and dogs from feasting on my feathered friends.

Winter Blues and Dreamin' of Spring

It is January. It is the dead of winter. It is cold. I just don't mean "cold", but "freeze the snot in your nose" kind of cold.  And if that is not enough, you got to throw in some snow.

This is what we woke up to this morning. Note, the light is true...It is just dreary today.

Also, ignore the streak of dirt on the window. It is winter and I will not go and clean it until spring arrives...all 3 days of it!

During this dull, drab, dreary winter, it is almost like our sweet mail lady knows what we need. Seed Catalogs!!  YES!

This is what arrived within a few days of each other. I do believe I threw some out too. I know there are some Ag catalogs in there, but they also have greenhouse and chicken products. So, in my book, that throws them in the same category as a seed catalog!

Now, in my spare time, I am thumbing through these pages, dreaming of warmer days and a garden filled with produce.....aaahhhh....

Confessions and Buffalo

My husband LOVES when I ride along with him at work. I LOATHE riding along with my husband when he is a work. I have too much to do, to sit in a truck and be bored for hours....

This fall, through a class (Love and Respect), I was reminded how much it means to him to have me by his side, regardless of what he is doing. He loves the company. It energizes him and he loves spending time with me (I guess that is why he married me!) So, today when he asked, I agreed.

Just to set the scene a little better. The past week, my trusty-rusty camera was giving me some problems. I ignored them like any non-techno person would because it would just fix itself and go away. Right? Well, yesterday, we went for a little hike. The kiddos just love getting outside and outside our yard. We had a blast. A little snow, a little mud, hills, trees and bulls...Always makes for a fun afternoon!  I pull out the camera to take a few pictures to remember the day with and nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but some grinding, beeping and lens issues. UGH!  So, I moped around the hike oblivious to my husband's shouts of "keep the dog with you!" and look up to see the 40 bulls in this canyon/pasture following us....nice.  One child was ready to leap off the top of the hill because she was terrified and the other, who is visually impaired, could not understand why I was holding on to her and would not let her "be out front". Well, the bulls became disinterested and we finished our hike, complete with tree knocking for "big foot"!

When we got home, I started researching my camera issue, because as much as I want a shiny, fancy pants, new camera, it just is not going to happen any time soon. I did find lots of information, as the issue is common. So, Monday morning, I set out to fix my camera! And I did! I am such a techy-geek! Ha!

This is when my husband walks in and congratulates me on my success and then pops the question - "Do you want to ride with me when I feed the buffalo?" Um....not really, but I bite my tongue. Ok, I will go. I grab my stuff and he adds "Aren't you going to bring a snack?" And, I am sure my reply was not all that pleasant, but went along the lines of "and just how long does it actually take to feed the buffalo?"

See, you have to understand that when he says XX mins/hours, it has to be multiplied by the "In Reality" factor. It NEVER takes what it should when I am along. Something goes "wrong" and we are stuck out in the middle of a pasture miles from anywhere and anyone with no cell service.

But, I bite my tongue, grab some almonds and a Diet Coke and a smile and hop into the truck.  Well, HIS dog is not impressed. She looks at me with some dirty words floating above her head because she knows she has to sit on the floor and I get the seat.  We get settled and go bouncing along our way.

We get to the buffalo (ok, they are bison, but buffalo sounds better!). They are waiting for the truck...Apparently, they know this thing pops out tasty treats each visit.  We drive to the feeding spot and I enjoy with my working camera!

Stampeding Bison! They love snack time!

Mad Bison! Or more than likely "It was chilly and she got her workout in!"

She is not impressed with the seating arrangements today....

4 pairs of swans having a snack. There are regularly 2 pairs in this cornfield, but today, they invited some friends. (and it is pretty foggy too)

From our hike, before the camera completely died - she needed a "gun" to shoot wildlife...

 And the magnifying glass to help see things "far away".....

And if you know where I live and realize it is the end of January and, yes, we are in "just" fleeces...Does not seem right.

Thanks for sticking with the rabbit trails in this post!

The BEST Popcorn!

Now that I live "in the sticks", I love when I can buy things locally. It makes me feel good knowing that my money is staying right here. This past year, I discovered a hidden jewel in the Sandhills! Double K Popcorn! This is THE BEST popcorn I have had in ages!

 The variety I love is Mushroom. It pops into the large, super-sized, "Cracker Jack" pieces of popcorn. It is awesome!

I used this over Christmas to make caramel popcorn. It was delicious! I will be posting that recipe a little later (after I lose some of the Christmas fluff and can afford to eat the whole batch!)

Check them out and find out what the buzz is about! There are a couple different varieties besides the Mushroom and I believe they even have microwave packets!