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Back with another video… this time I’m going to show you how easy it is to make your own refried beans (frijoles refritos). This time I’m also partnering up with The WLS Reality channel on YouTube to bring this one to you.
Traditionally, refritos are made with pinto beans, but there’s nothing to say you can’t make them with whatever bean you want. Tonight I used adzuki beans, they have a bit of a nutty sweetness to them compared to pintos. Black beans or red beans would be worth trying too.
In the early days after WLS, soups are a good thing. They can be very easy on the pouch and are one of the first ways we get some variety in our diet in the first few weeks as we transition from the liquid diet back to solid foods.
Later on, soups are not always the best thing, because they flow through the pouch too quickly and can leave you feeling hungry again pretty darn quick. But there are days where your pouch just ain’t in the best of moods, and combine that with the chilly weather we’ve had here in MN (3 inches of snow in the last week!), and soup just seemed like a good idea tonight.
You could grab something in a can or jar off the shelf, but they’re laden with sodium and usually fat and other junk we just don’t need. Besides, a decent soup really isn’t that hard to make, and if you start with a few helpers you can have a good soup in less than half-an-hour.
So that’s what I did, and for tonight’s menu – Cream(less) of Broccoli Soup.
Pre-op, the Bush’s baked beans and a can of chili beans in my chili was usually the extent of my adventure with beans. Post-op, I’ve been trying to branch out. Mild in flavor, versatile, and packed with protein (13g per 1/2 cup serving!), soybeans have definitely become one of my favorites.
You can find them in the grocery stores… sometimes. One local chain has them for about $1.75 a can which has about 3.5, 1/2 cup servings (in other words about 1 3/4 cups when drained). Most places I’ve seen the same size can runs $.2.25 and up, cause they tend to only carry “organic” brands.
Or you can hit the local co-op or Whole Foods and get dried beans for about the same cost per pound. One pound of those dried beans is going to be just over two cups… but like Ball Park Franks, they plump when you cook them so you end up with nearly 3 cups, and they about double in weight.
Cooking dried beans can seem daunting. Do some searches online and they all talk about how long they need to be pre-soaked, and how you can use a pressure cooker to speed the time, and soybeans, well heck, they take the longest to cook of just about any bean out there! Sounds like a pain in the butt, no?
Not really… if you use the right tool. And in this case, that tool is a Crock Pot, or slow-cooker.
