Day 14: Picadillo

My family is Cuban, so I grew up eating Cuban food, of course.  Whenever my mom visits us, the children love it when she makes Cuban food.  One of their favorite dishes is actually a very easy-to-prepare meal we call Picadillo (peek-ah-dee-yo).  I have been thinking this meal would be a fairly easy one to prepare in the crock pot.  You just have to brown some ground beef with a few spices and vegetables, and after that you could add it to a crock pot with a few other ingredients to simmer.  In fact, the slow cooking would make the flavors really sink in.  I was right!  This turned out especially delicious!  This is one of those meals that I kind of don’t really have measurements for, but I will do my best to share.  Some of the ingredients are special but you can substitute other things and still get great flavor.

Picadillo
Ingredients:
2 pounds ground beef
Adobo seasoning (about a tablespoon)
1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 package Goya Sazón (you can substitute turmeric, garlic powder, and cumin–about 1/4 tsp each)
1/2-3/4 cup Vino Seco (or dry white wine–cooking wine is OK)
1 jar manzanilla olives
Raisins (optional)
2-4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
Cooked rice, for serving (brown or white)

Instructions:
1.  Sautée the green bell pepper, onion and garlic, until onion and green pepper are tender.
2.  Add Adobo to raw ground beef and mix in well.  You probably want about a tablespoon, but you can experiment to your own taste as you cook the meat, adding more, if desired.  Then, add the ground beef to the pan with the vegetables, and cook until meat is browned.
3.  Drain and discard the oil from the meat.  Put the meat mixture into the crock pot.
4.  Add tomato sauce, sazón seasoning (or substitute turmeric, garlic powder and cumin), Vino Seco (or white cooking wine), olives (you can put as many as you want–I use almost a whole small jar for every 2 pounds of meat), and raisins.  I also always add quite a bit of the olive juice.  It gives a special flavor to the dish that you can’t really get any other way.
5.  Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 2-3 hours.
6.  For the potatoes, you can either boil them and add towards the end of cooking time, or if you are cooking on low for several hours, they should be ok to cook together with other ingredients so they have time to cook through.  I boiled them and added just before serving.
7.  Serve over freshly steamed rice.  My mom really doesn’t like this with brown rice, but we only eat brown rice around here.  It tastes good to me, but if you want the real Cuban experience, you should probably go with white.  Take it from my Cuban mom.

Day 15: Breakfast Skillet
Yesterday, we were planning to attend a Christmas celebration at the community where my father lives here in Austin, so I wasn’t planning to make dinner at home.  So, I made another breakfast for yesterday’s crock pot installment instead.  This is another recipe that my kids have grown to really enjoy.  Again, there is nothing quite like waking up to your breakfast already hot and ready in the morning.  Love this! I double this for our family and use a 6- or 7-qt. crock pot.

Note:  The only thing about this recipe is that the cooking time, even on low, is kind of short.  So, you either have to be awake late enough at night to turn it on 6 hours before you want to eat, or you need to be up early enough in the morning to cook it on high for a couple of hours.  I sometimes will get everything into the crock, put it in the fridge and then set my alarm so I can get up and start the crock pot at around 1:30 in the morning so it’s ready when we want to eat around 7:30.  If I am up early to work out, I can start it at 5:00 instead.  If you have a crock pot that you can set to specific times, it can work, but my crock pot that does has that feature tends to overcook this once it’s past the 6 hours, even on warm.

Breakfast Skillet
Ingredients: 
3 cups milk
5.5-oz. package au gratin potatoes (the box, not frozen)
1 tsp. hot sauce
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. prepared mustard
4-oz. can sliced mushrooms (we skip this because my kids won’t eat mushrooms)
8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions:
1. Combine milk, au gratin sauce packet, hot sauce, eggs, and mustard in greased crock pot.
2. Stir in dried potatoes, mushrooms, and bacon.  DO NOT ADD CHEESE.
3. Cover.  Cook on high 2 1/2 to 3 hours or on low 5-6 hours.
4. About 20 min before serving, sprinkle the cheese on top.  Cover and wait until cheese is melted to serve.

Variation:
Add other vegetables, such as chopped onions, bell peppers or tomatoes.  You can sautée the onions and peppers before adding.