Spanish Rice

This recipe comes from the Scranton Centennial Cookbook,

From The Finest Cooks in Mid-America.

I happen to agree with that sentiment.  I was raised in Scranton and graduated 

from high school there in 1969, the year of Scranton's Centennial.

My friend, So-Yeoun, is from South Korea, so rice is one of the staples in her diet.

I wanted to make a Mid-America take on a rice dish that would have been served

when I was growing up on a farm north of Scranton.

I am taking some excerpts from the forward of this cookbook on how it came to be:

Scranton, Iowa, is a rural farming community located in west central Iowa in Greene County about seventy-five miles northwest of Des Moines.  This cookbook is filled with recipes contributed by Scranton area women who have used these recipes to prepare dishes that grace the tables at church and PTA suppers, that help celebrate family, Thanksgiving, and 4th of July.  Recipes that fill and refresh hungry families that have planted and harvested crops and attended football games on cold nights.
In short, these are the recipes that have nourished Middle America; that have raised healthy young men and women and have helped conquer a new frontier.  Many have been handed down from generation to generation, and all of them have been "taste tested" many times.

We are making a version of Marie Underwood's Spanish Rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 28 oz. cooked tomatoes
• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 2 tsp. salt
• Dash of black pepper
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 cup tomato juice

Assemble ingredients.

Chop 1 onion.
(The original recipe calls for 2, we used 1 large.)

Put 3 Tbsp. oil in pan and heat.
(We used olive oil, cooks in 1969 used vegetable oil.
The recipe called for 3 tbsp. fat.)

Saute onions in oil.

Add chopped bell pepper.

Cook until tender.

Add ground beef and brown until mixture falls apart.

Add a 28 oz. can of tomatoes.  We used some that had
seasonings added, oregano, onion, and garlic.
(The original recipe called for 2 cups cooked tomatoes.)

Add 1 cup uncooked rice.

Season with salt.

Add black pepper to taste.

Add 1 tsp. chili powder.
(In 1969 that was about as spicy as the dishes were.)

Add 1 cup tomato juice.

Grease 9x13 casserole pan.

Vegetables are tender.

Pour into prepared casserole pan.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake
350 degrees for 1 hour or until rice is tender.

Enjoy!