Refried Pinto Beans

If you’ve never made your own refried beans, you’ve never lived! The tasteless canned paste they sell as refried beans in stores is a general affront to all beans everywhere. That’s a shame, because nothing makes a good taco greater than a schmear of creamy, salty, bacon-y beans. (The bacon is optional.) This recipe is a little fiddly in that you soak the beans, boil them, and then mash them in onion sautéed in bacon drippings, but the results are sublime. You’ll be rewarded with a big batc