Warning: If you’re looking for the “Spanish Rice” similar to that typically served in Mexican restaurants, this isn’t it! Here is the original recipe, followed by some substitutions you may wish to try.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef (or turkey)
• 2 cups uncooked long grain rice
• 1 (4 oz.) can fire roasted diced green chilies (if you’re daring you can substitute diced jalapeños—or use half & half of each)
• 1 (10 oz.) can salsa (Ortega or similar)
• 1 (7¾ oz.) can tomato sauce
• ¼ cup shortening (may use vegetable oil)
• 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 4 cups water
• 14.5 ounce can diced fire-roasted tomatoes (optional)

In place of the salsa, Ro*tel (actual label has a 5-pointed star in place of the * or a hyphen) has at least 5 alternatives that work very well. There is Original, Mild, Hot, Chunky and Mexican, depending on how hot you want to go. And an excellent substitution for the tomato sauce is one of the 7.5 ounce cans of El Pato brand sauces. They, too, offer a variety of different heats/flavors, but you might like to start out with their Mexican Hot Style Tomato Sauce.

Directions:

• Brown the meat and drain off any grease
• In a pressure cooker (recommended, since it greatly reduces the cooking time), brown the rice in the melted shortening or oil
• Add the cans of ingredients to the rice and stir well
• Add the browned meat and water; stir well
• Cook for 10-12 minutes (after it comes up to pressure)

It may be eaten as is or put on a large flour tortilla and then rolled like a burrito.

By the way, if you are the suicidal type, you may wish to use habañeros in place of (or in addition to) the green chilies.