Tonight, I'm making an old family recipe we call "Spanish Rice". I have no clue how it got the name, and I've repeatedly asked my mom where the recipe came from, and she says it's from my grandmother. It's really good. It's not health food though, so if you don't like cheese and ground beef, look away. If you triple the recipe (requires a large oven safe cooking vessel), it's great for families and will leave plenty of left overs for multiple dinners.
The basic recipe:
1/3 cup of rice (not instant)
2 cans of crushed tomatoes
1 cup of hot water
3rd of a chopped onion
3rd of a bell pepper chopped
1 cup of diced OLD ENGLISH CHEESE or KRAFT DELI DELUXE SHARP CHEDDAR
If you can't find that kind of cheese, the recipe doesn't work.
1 pound of browned and drained ground beef.
Basically, you pour everything except the browned ground beef into a large oven safe pot (sprayed with pam), mix it up, and stick it in a 350 oven. Then, in a separate pan, brown the ground beef and drain the fat. After 30 minutes, add the browned ground beef to the pot with the other ingredients. Bake it until the rice is tender. Takes about 2 hours usually. Pull it out every 30 minutes and stir. You can then take the Spanish rice and fill par boiled or par baked bell peppers and make stuffed peppers. Add copious amounts of hot sauce if you're like me.