Beans are amazing and versatile. I always have 3 or 4 different kinds of dried beans. I was building a little stockpile pre-Brexit and so rolled into Corona quarantine with about 5 kilos of dried beans and lentils. The challenge – make them into great food for the Davinator (not a problem for the ultimate omnivore), my son and his university roommate (our lockdown crew).

Homemade refried beans is a great response to this challenge.

Refried beans are healthier and easier than you think. The recipe is very flexible – you can use almost any kind of canned or dried beans you have available. Black beans, white beans, pinto beans, black eyed peas. I was eying up a can of chick peas the other day – but those are better used in hummus.

The amount of spice is up to you – some like it hot, some like it garlicky, some like it with the flavour of beans shining through. The vegan version is, if anything, better than the standard version. Or you can go full on old school decadent carnivore and start with lard or beef dripping.

Refrieds are NOT fried twice. It’s a corruption of frijoles refritos or ‘well fried’. Not deep fried, not soaked in lard, just fried well.

Refried beans are great in Tex-Mex food; fajitas, burritos, quesadillas, tacos, dip, nachos – the list goes on and on. Kids like beans if they are well cooked and will pretty much eat anything you wrap up in a flour tortilla. Also, refrieds are an essential component of the highest form of Tex-Mex food – huevos rancheros. Food of the gods.

My son and his roommate brought a can of refried beans when they came home for lockdown. I said ‘I’m going to show you what that should taste like’. Made them this recipe, took a dish into their study room with a few corn chips. They took one tentative taste (to be polite) and then dived in and gobbled the rest up. They are converts.

The convenience of a can of refried beans is not to be sneered at but make these at least once so you know what they should taste like. I made extra and froze portions for future use.

And just in time for Cinco de Maya – here’s the recipe.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 30 grams (2 tablespoons) of butter or neutral oil, divided (vegan substitutions)
• 1 small white onion, peeled and diced small
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 x 425 gram cans of beans (2 x 15 ounce cans) or 200 grams (1 cup) of dried beans, cooked as described below
• 120 mls (1/2 cup) vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon chili powder (decide how spicy you want your beans to be and consider hot or chipotle chili powder)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon freshly-squeezed lime juice
• fine sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper
• optional garnishes: finely-chopped fresh cilantro, crumbled or shredded cheese, diced tomato, and/or sliced jalapeño

Instructions

1. Heat half the butter (or oil) in a large deep frying pan until melted.  Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened.  Add the garlic and repeat for 1-2 more minutes, until cooked and fragrant.
2. Add in the canned or cooked beans, veggie stock, chili powder, cumin and oregano, and stir to combine.  Continue cooking until the mixture reaches a simmer.
3. Take the pan off the heat.  Use a potato masher or a wooden spoon to mash the beans to your desired consistency.  If you like them super-smooth, you can purée them with a stick blender or in your food processor. I don’t recommend the food processor – pureed beans are a b*****d to clean up.
4. Stir in the remaining butter until well-combined.  Taste and season the beans with lime juice, salt and pepper, to taste.
5. Serve warm, topped with any garnishes you might like.

Thank you for reading the blog, commenting, cooking, subscribing and sharing. Keep healthy and safe.

Instructions for cooking dried beans: this is my go to website for working with dried beans. It takes a little more time but is even cheaper than using canned beans. Enjoy.

This is the most foolproof recipe for jam or jelly that I’ve ever made. If you’ve got citrus fruit, sugar and some jars you are more than half way home. It’s a good recipe for a newbie or a nervous jam maker because the ‘setting’ is very reliable.

Why a marmalade recipe from someone who lives in England? Citrus is technically never in season here. But there is a long association between these cool and damp islands and the traditional citrus based preserves that are marmalade.

Legend has it that a ship load of Seville oranges ran aground in Dundee in Scotland. The scavengers scooped up the oranges and then cooked them with sugar until it ‘jellied’ to protect their loot. That story has been debunked but the first ever factory to produce marmalade was in Dundee, opened in 1797.

The corona virus lockdown has propelled me into making marmalade on two fronts; we have excess citrus fruit and a shortage of jam.

We get our fruit and vegetables from a delivery service – Abel & Cole. Adore them but they’ve made adaptations to their service during the lockdown so you get your fruit and veg box and can’t edit out or in specific items. Also the Davinator has been the one to brave the queue system at Waitrose (posh supermarket for Americans). He is prone to going ‘off list’ and coming home with things that ‘looked yummy’. Et voila, there is excess of oranges.

One of my best friends lives in Devon and makes the best jam, marmalade and preserves and is generous with gifting them to friends. We don’t actually go down to see them when we’re about to run out of jam and marmalade – but it might SEEM that way. We had been scheduled to visit at Easter and our stocks had run low. Then corona. And the Davinator was down to one jar of courgette marmalade, one jar of chutney and we opened the last jar of strawberry jam.

We had a need for marmalade, we had oranges and sugar and I had the empty jars I had been saving to return to my jam making friend. And that’s all you need for ingredients. A couple of pieces of equipment help a great deal: a food processor for chopping, a deep kettle for the boiling marmalade and jam funnel.

You won’t make elegant jewel toned marmalade with artistic shreds of peel with my recipe. But it will work (i.e. jell) and it will look and taste great. And it’s a great time saver. The prep takes about 10 minutes, including getting out your food processor and it takes about 30 minutes to cook. While it’s cooking you can prep your jars, sterilise your lids and wash up the food processor.

Ready to marmelise?

Recipe

Makes 1.75 litres of jam, say 5 normal jam jars. You could do one or two very large jars as well. It keeps.

Ingredients

900 grams (2 pounds) of citrus fruit: oranges, lemons, grapefruit, clementines, satsumas. All of one kind or mix and match. You can use one or two limes but don’t go full lime – too bitter. That’s about six medium sized oranges.

1 kilogram (2 pounds, 2 ounces) of sugar (caster – UK, granulated – US)

Crystallised ginger, a generous handful if desired.

Method

1. Wash the fruit, quarter it, remove seeds or pips with the tip of a knife. Cut off any blemishes in the rind and I also cut off the stem end. Throw it all in the food processor or blender with the ginger if you’re including ginger. If using the blender, do 2 or 3 batches. Process until its quite small chunks.
2. Put in a deep sturdy cooking pot with the sugar. Over low heat, melt the sugar while stirring. Bring to a boil, back it down to a simmer with big bubbles popping on the surface. Keep stirring from time to time and scrape down the sides of the pot into the jam. It needs to be bubbling away for 25 to 30 minutes.
3. Prep your jars. I sterilise all preserve jars, including jam jars although some argue that the boiling preserves kill all bacteria. I’m indifferent to germs most of the time but I sterilise the jars and the lids. Here’s a link to the easiest method – bake them in the oven. The video also has a reasonable alternative to the jam funnel – transfer your marmalade to a sterilised jug to pour it into the jars. Also works well. Use a glass or metal jug and be aware that it should be sterilised too. The handle may get hot.
4. Your marmalade should be coating and jelling on the back of a metal spoon now. Go ahead and fill your jars. If you’re a nervous jam maker – have plenty of clean tea towels (dish towels), oven mitts and sterilised tongs to put the lids on. Get ready and fill your jars.
5. This recipe works because of the amount of the pectin in the rind of the fruit so it is quite reliable. But here’s a top tip from my jam making friend – if it does not jell, empty the jars back into a saucepan and boil it for another 10 minutes. If your jam sets too ‘tight’ you might need to heat it to use it but it’s absolutely lovely gently warmed and poured over pancakes or waffles.

I hope you enjoy your marmalade. Thank you for reading, commenting, subscribing, sharing and for cooking the recipes.