Spanish Rice Recipe

Years ago my mom used to make a recipe she called "Spanish Rice" on occasion.  I loved it and she often made a very large batch so we had leftovers.  Since my brother and I moved out and mom and dad aren't cooking quite as many recipes as they used to when the house was full, the recipe somehow got lost to time.

After I graduated college, I tried getting the recipe from my mom a few times and was typically met with "well.......I don't know.......I just put stuff together as I had them and mixed to taste."  I tried making it a few times and was met with many a failure.

About a year ago I called mom and really grilled her on what she thought she put in there with the idea that unlike my chili recipe, I would painstakingly measure everything I put in until I was happy with the resulting flavor profile.  Given there are many fresh ingredients in the recipe and many things that I grow, I felt it right to include it here.

Below is the recipe in two forms.  One is based on if you only want to use 1 cup of rice.  The other is based off 1 lb of ground beef.  The latter version yields more.

Ingredients - "1 cup" version:

• 3/4 lb ground beef
• 1/4 - 1/2 green pepper (diced)
• 1 small/medium onion (diced)
• 8 oz tomato paste
• 1 cup of uncooked rice
• 4 large cloves garlic (crushed)
• 2 T chili powder (to taste)
• 1/2 T paprika (to taste)
• 1/2 T crushed red pepper (to taste)

 

 Ingredients - "1 lb" version: 

• 1 lb ground beef
• 2/3 green pepper (diced)
• 1 1/3 medium onion (diced)
• 10 oz tomato paste
• 1 1/3 cup of uncooked rice
• 5 large cloves garlic (crushed)
• 2 2/3 T chili powder (to taste)
• 2/3 T paprika (to taste)
• 2/3 T crushed red pepper (to taste)

 

Preparation:

Cook the rice.  In a large pan or wok, brown the ground beef.  Add the crushed garlic, onions, and green pepper and cook down.  Add seasonings.  Finally, add the cooked rice to the beef mixture and stir.