Crock Pot Tepary Beans

My mother-in-law first introduced me to tepary beans, a small bean native to Arizona and last year, I got a few 1 lb bags of them at a gardening demonstration. I kept meaning to cook them, but I never remember to soak my beans overnight and tend to rely on canned beans because of this.

One night, I remembered and decided to try them. For some reason, I thought they were sweet--maybe I was thinking of mesquite beans. They're not. They taste a lot like pinto beans, but because they're so small, they cook really well in a crock pot (whenever I try to cook pinto beans in the crock pot, they still taste raw to me).

These were delicious with a little rice mixed in to make them look more "refried." I get mine at the Town and Country Farmers' Market.

Crock Pot Tepary Beans
I modified the recipe I got from the gardening fair and added the cumin, chili powder and salt.

1 lb tepary benas
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1 t salt

Clean, sort, and soak beans overnight.

Place soaked beans in a crock pot along with bacon, onion, cumin, chili powder, and salt. Add enough water to cover the beans by about 1 inch. Cook on high for about 8 hours. I removed as much liquid as I could and then, added 1/2 cup of leftover cooked rice about an hour before serving to absorb the excess liquid. This helped the beans to look more like the refried beans my kids prefer.

Delicious with some homemade corn taco shells.