Refried Beans without the refry

I have never tried homemade refried beans before because in my mind it seemed like a lot of work. Then I found this crockpot recipe for refried beans. It came from all recipes.com. I liked the idea that I could just throw these in the crockpot and then forget about them for 8 hours. Plus they are not actually refried so they are way healthier. Now you can add a little cheese! I ommited the jalepeno because I didn't want them to be too spicy. I also made some changes in the way I prepared them which I will note.

Refried Beans without the refry

adapted from Allrecipes.com

1 onion, peeled and halved
3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed
1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (I left this out)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
5 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin, optional (I used this!)
9 cups water

DIRECTIONS
Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno (if desired), garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker. Pour in the water and stir to combine. Cook on High for 8 hours.

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.

They were yummy but had a little kick from the pepper and cumin. You could easily leave out the cumin and decreased the pepper by a 1/2 tsp or so.

*I like my refried beans on the creamy side so I took about 2/3 of the drained beans and put them in the blender on puree. Then I added them back into the remaining 1/3 of the mashed beans. They were perfect in my humble opinion.*