10-Minute Pinto Bean Soup
AKA refried bean soup with ALL the toppings, plus a gentle reminder to forgo perfection in favor of connection
I’ve been getting more requests for dinner recipes that are very quick and very easy. This isn’t surprising now that the school year and all its activities are in full swing and the busy holiday season is looming.
This recipe for pinto bean soup checks all the boxes for very quick, very easy and very filling.
I know it sounds too good to be true, but this dinner really only takes about 10 minutes to make. While you’re whisking and simmering the soup, someone else in your family should be grating cheese, chopping green onions & cilantro and opening containers of sour cream, salsa and chips.
SHORT CUT TIPS: Buy pre-grated cheddar, and if you don’t trust your kids with a knife they can help by using kitchen scissors to snip the green onions & cilantro.
Pinto bean soup (AKA refried bean soup) is a ringing endorsement for the convenience of canned beans. All you need to do is bring a few cups of water to a boil and whisk in a can of refried beans. Voila! You magically have a pot of creamy, smooth pinto bean soup.
Next, add a can of black beans for texture then pile on the toppings. The toppings are a MUST! Fill your bowl with a generous amount of melted cheese plus spoonfuls of cilantro, green onions, spicy salsa and crunchy, crumbled tortilla chips
For the full recipe and measurements, here’s a link to 10-Minute refried bean soup on Kitchen Skip.
Dinner Last Week
I’m always curious about what other families are eating. Aren’t you? Here’s what my crew ate last week.
Monday: Instant Pot orzo with Italian sausage and broccoli. Sounds like a good one-pot meal, doesn’t it? I thought it did too, but my first attempt at this recipe was so-so. That’s the downside of being a recipe developer, you have to eat your mediocre recipes and failures too.
Tuesday: Pork chops, sauteed delicata squash and Trader Joe’s rice orzo pilaf. The Trader Joe’s boxed rice isn’t nearly as good as my homemade orzo rice but if you’re in a hurry it’s fine.
Wednesday: I was low on groceries. During the afternoon I roasted a head of cauliflower that was about to go bad. Luckily, I had frozen ravioli and leftover pork from the night before to round out the meal. Wednesday dinners are tricky because Sorin usually works late and the kids and I are at swim practice from 5:45pm to 7:30pm. Some of us (me) want to eat before we leave and other family members want to eat later. This would be a perfect night for a Crock Pot recipe….anyone have a favorite?
Thursday: Ground chicken stir-fry with noodles and egg rolls. I’ll be sharing this easy recipe with you next week. It’s so good!
Friday: We all craved comfort food for our casual family Shabbat dinner. A big pot of matzo ball soup was the perfect meal to end the week.
Cookbooks
This is a good cookbook to have around with the festive holiday season approaching. If you’ll be hosting family or friends for dinner, you’ll find lots of ideas in this cookbook by Leslie Jonath
Feed your People features “big batch, big-hearted cooking and recipes.” These recipes aren’t necessarily quick or easy and many require some planning and prep work beforehand. BUT, every recipe has exact measurements and instructions for a single or double batch which takes all of the guess work out of cooking for a large group.
Many of the single batch recipes feed 8 to 12 people and the double batches feed anywhere from 15 to 24. You can use the recipes in this cookbook to cook for a party, for your kid’s soccer team dinner, for your book club, or just to stock up your own freezer.
Feed your People also has a lot of helpful tips for hosting groups. Here’s one piece of advice that I especially like. I like it so much, it might become my new mantra:
Forgo perfection in favor of connection
This is so good! It’s very easy to feel like you can’t have people over unless you serve a perfect meal in a perfectly clean house. But the truth is that for most of us, life is messy. If we wait until everything is perfect (or at least appears to be perfect) then we’re robbing ourselves of the joy that comes from the good company of friends and family.
Whenever another family invites my family over for dinner, I’m so grateful for the invitation no matter what they serve. And honestly, I’m so relieved if their house is messy and normal. I try to remind myself that other people probably feel this way too when they come to my house.
This mantra of connection over perfection doesn’t just apply to hosting others. Keep it in mind when feeding your own family. Eating a perfectly balanced homemade meal matters less than spending time together.
That’s it, have a great weekend!
This weekend kicks off a series of Halloween/Harvest Fest/Day of the Dead festivities at our kids’ two schools, so that’s what I’ll be doing for the next couple weekends.
We might also, finally, put out some decorations and pumpkins on Sunday when the weather finally drops below 80. Thank goodness!
Jenny