My mom makes this all the time. It's a little more complicated than what I like to do, but on a Saturday when you haven't really got much else to do, it's not bad to spend a little time doing it. Also, it's pretty yummy, and it makes a lot, so there's leftovers for Monday's lunch. For more than one person.

Spanish Rice

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound ground meat (beef or turkey)
  
• 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• coarsely chopped garlic cloves (amount depends on how much you like garlic)
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups rice
• water
• salt
  
• a frying pan with a lid
  

PREPARATION:

If your ground meat is frozen, it needs to be thawed mostly all the way before you get started. If you know you're going to make this, take your meat out of the freezer the night before and just stick it in the fridge (in a bowl so it doesn't melt all over).

Brown your ground meat in a big frying pan on medium heat (5-6 for electric stoves, medium flame for gas). While you are doing that, chop up your onion (use a chopper if you have one) pretty fine - you don't want big chunks. Also chop up your garlic cloves (make sure you peel them first!) fairly coarsely; you can have little chunks of that, because they'll cook up soft and you won't notice them much.

Once the ground meat is browned, put a strainer or collander in the sink and dump the meat into it to drain off all the grease. Then put the meat back into the skillet and put it back on the stove. Add your garlic and onion, and add your rice. Then open up your cans of tomatoes - this is where things get sticky.

Pour the tomato juice into the mess in the skillet, but catch the tomatoes and squish them up really hard in your hands. (Tip: Poke a hole in each one with your finger before squishing; it helps reduce the incidence of having juice squirt all over the stove/counter/you.) Then dump the squished remains of tomato into the skillet also. When you've done this for all the tomatoes, you want to fill each can with water (plain old tap water) and pour the water into the skillet as well. Sprinkle some salt in (to taste) and mix it up well.

Cover the skillet and cook it. You want to check it about every 20 minutes or so to make sure it hasn't run out of water (you need the water to cook the rice). You know it's done when your water is mostly gone out of it but the rice is cooked nice and tender. It's something you kind of have to eyeball.

Serves 8 easily.

My dad used to love to eat this stuffed inside a Bell pepper. Just core the pepper and boil it for about 3 minutes. Then fill it with this rice mix, and bake it in the oven on a cookie sheet at 350 for about half an hour or so, until the pepper is tender. Mom and I don't like peppers, though, so we just eat the junk plain out of a bowl.

You can serve a green salad with this, and some hot bread. In fact, I have a really scrumptious recipe for garlic toast that I think I may have to share tomorrow. Today, though, we're having it with buttered saltine crackers. Yum!

Getting set up (we keep our rice in the Karmelcorn bucket because it's airtight and fits well in the freezer)
Everything in but the tomatoes
Cooking!

What it looks like when it's finished