I was sick last week with a severe cold that hit me out of the blue. Luckily, before I was out of commission, I had gotten some beans started in the crockpot. Our crockpot in Ecuador was an impulse purchase by Alex, but we used it all the time so I knew that I wanted to get one here. It’s still been incredibly warm so we aren’t doing a lot with it yet. These beans seemed like a great idea though since we could eat some now and freeze some for later. They aren’t technically refried since they are only cooked once, but they taste a lot like those mushy beans that I have grown to love over the last four years. I couldn’t find pinto beans (although I didn’t look very hard) so I just used some sort of red beans instead.

The cold hit me throughout the school day so although I had started the beans in the morning, I was in no shape for cooking by the time I got home. Alex put together these chicken nachos and topped them with some salsa I had made the weekend before…an excellent dinner on a night when I was way too exhausted to cook!