I sometimes believe my love of beans came from the can of refried beans my family would use for tostada nights in the late 1960s and 1970s. I loved the power of creating my own tostada, which at that point would not have had a hint of a fresh vegetable but oddly loaded with hot sauce. It was all good but it was the refried beans that made me a lifelong fan of beans.  I don't think there is a lot of debate about the best way to refry beans. White onion is wilted in freshly rendered lard and then...

I had lots of chile sauce leftover and I'm getting obsessive with the technique of poaching eggs in chile sauce, I did it again for breakfast. I thinned out the chile sauce with chicken stock but I'm beginning to suspect water would have been fine. I added some previously cooked nopales (cactus paddles) and when the brew was simmering, I gently cracked two eggs into the pan. I'm liking this technique more and more. I also liked the fully cooked cactus. There was some tooth to it but it is soft and I think better a little less al dente....