Really the title of this should be cooking with @mrsbozz because while I started it, she is the one that did most of the cooking while I went to church. Plus she took all of the pictures...

I wrote in this post about how my wife and I had decided to order an Instant Pot. If you haven't heard of them before, these "quick cookers" are all the rage right now, blending many features into one device. In fact, the Instant Pot we purchased claims to be a seven in one appliance:

• Pressure Cooker
• Slow Cooker
• Rice Cooker
• Steamer
• Saute'
• Yogurt Maker
• Warmer

They also have more expensive models that do even more. Thanks to the magic of Kohl's and Kohl's cash, we were able to get a really great deal on ours. One of the main reasons we purchased it was to make our own refried beans.

@mrsbozz pulled the recipe we used off of Pintrest, this is less a post about how to make the refried beans and more a post about how we used our Instant Pot to save time and hopefully create something great.

I checked with the all powerful Google and traditional refriend bean recipes can take between 1.5 and 7 hours just to cook the beans depending on how you cook them. Softening them up in a slow cooker can take much longer than just cooking them in a pan on the stove.

The total "cook" time for our beans was just under an hour. It actually took a little longer than that and I will explain why in a little bit.

First we set the Instant Pot to saute' and we loaded it up with some of the things that would give the refried beans their awesome flavor.

Specifically, half an onion, some minced garlic and one jalapeno. It only took a matter of minutes for the items to become softened and ready for the next part of the process. We weren't sure how the jalapeno was going to impact the flavor, so I took out the seeds and most of the ribs just to be safe.

Next, it was time for the dry beans. We put them in the strainer just to pick through them and make sure there were no stones or foreign objects. It is very important to do that when you are working with dry beans. Some recipes require you to soak the beans for a certain amount of time before you cook them. This can increase the preparation time and is actually not necessary when you are using an Instant Pot.

Next we added all of the other good stuff... The recipe called for about a box and a half of chicken stock along with a spice mixture consisting of oregano, cumin, and garlic powder. I think there was also some chili poweder in there as well. There was also a water mixutre that included some vinegar that we had to add to the pot.

This is what it looked like before we put the cover on and locked it down for pressure cooking.

I set the pressure cooker to use the high pressure setting as per the instructions and then I set the timer for 50 minutes. Before I mentioned that the beans took only 50 minutes to cook. While true, it doesn't really tell the whole story. With a pressure cooker it takes a bit of time for the device to remove the pressure from inside the pot. This added another ten to twenty minutes at the beginning before the timer even started counting down from the 50 minute mark.

After the fifty minutes were finished, the recipe then required us to let the pressure naturally release for another twenty minutes. The Instant Pot has a valve on the top that you can manually move to release the pressure faster. Some dishes require you to move the valve right away while others have you wait for a predetermined amount of time so the pot can naturally equalize pressure.

Many times when you see people who had accidents with Instant Pots or pressure cookers in general, it is because they didn't follow the directions for natural release vs. manual release. Additionally, sometimes they fail to inspect the internal seal before using the pot. Either way the Instant Pot is much safer than tranditional pressure cookers that sound like a rattlesnake on your cooktop.

After I set the kitchen timer for the twenty minute natural vent process I had to take off for church. @mrsbozz finished the rest of the process and took some awesome pictures now that I go back and look at them.

Per my suggestion, after the twenty minutes she put a towel loosely over the top of the pot and used a wooden spoon to move the valve so the pressure could release the rest of the way. Even after the natural venting process a large amount of steam still escaped and I recommended she give it another 5 to ten minutes to ensure the pressure had fully equalized.

Here are some pictures of what she was looking at once she took the top off.

She then needed to strain the mixture to remove the excess liquid.

Looking pretty good right! At this point the recipe called for an immersion blender to "mush up" all of the beans and other goodies. We don't have one of those, so she put everything in our handy dandy food processor instead.

She also kept some of the liquid that had been strained off to the side in case she needed to add some back to the mixture. She wasn't sure how thick or thin the consistency would be and she wanted to fine tune it to her liking.

After a bit of processing, she ended up with this:

Now, if you've never seen refried beans, this probably looks a bit like poo. If you have seen refried beans though, you will recognize this delicious side dish for many Mexican entree's.

The one package of beans made these three containers of refried beans. I got a text message from @mrsbozz while I was sitting in church and she exclaimed that they were amazing! I gave them a try when I got home and I would have to agree with her. She said that next time she would probably use about half the vinegar the recipe called for, but other than that she was really happy with them.

We left a container out to have with one of our meals this week and the other two she put in the freezer. I am looking forward to trying the Instant Pot out to make some BBQ baked beans. I am also itching to give BBQ ribs a go in it too!

There you have it, this was our second run with the Instant Pot, but only the first one that we documented. These things are pretty handy and I am looking forward to see what else we can do with it. All pictures were taken by @mrsbozz and belong to us.

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