RECIPE: Quick and Easy Croutons from Old Bread

Every week, I buy one loaf of bread from the farm store, but we are only 2 people and we usually don't finish it.  Sometimes it develops a bit of mold before it's done, or I buy a fresh loaf, and it gets tossed, which is stressful for me - I hate waste!  

A few days ago, when I was cooking some baked chicken tenders, there was extra fat in the pan so I cut a few slices of old bread into cubes and mixed them with the fat.  They cooked for 7 minutes with the chicken and they were delicious on the salad I served with it.  

I tested the recipe a few more times to insure it wasn't a fluke!

Quick and Easy Croutons from Old Bread

 

This is an un-recipe - make as much as you have old bread!  Our bread comes in a plastic bag to protect it from flies.  If we store it without the plastic, it stays crisp for about a day but then dries out quickly.  If we store it with the plastic bag closed, it goes moldy fast.  We now store it in the bag but with the end open and it will last 5 days, but it's quite dry by then!  At this point, it's perfect for croutons.

INGREDIENTS:

• Old bread, dry but not so dry it can't be cut into cubes
• Avocado oil
• Optional Seasoning:
• Salt and pepper
• Garlic and dill 
• Paprika
• Sumac  
• Berbere or harissa
• Italian 
• parmesan
  

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350F. 

I use our toaster oven, and I bake the cubes in one of the trays that came with it. Use a tray/dish big enough to hold all your cubes in 1-2 layers.  they will cook faster in one layer, but 2 layers is doable.

Using a serrated knife, slice the bread.  If the crusts are dark, remove and discard them, and then cut the bread into cubes - please use a protective glove for this, a serrated knife will quickly make a deep cut in your hand if it slides off the bread crust (I learned this the hard way!).  I aim for 1/2" cubes.  Put them in the baking tray/dish as you cut them.

Drizzle the cubes with avocado oil and toss to coat.  They should be LIGHTLY coated, not swimming.

Lightly salt the cubes and then season them with whatever flavor will work best with the salads you serve:

• Garlic and dill is delicious with ranch dressing, 
• Harissa, sumac or berbere is great with Honey-Mustard Dressing 
• Italian seasoning would be good with balsamic dressing, or any other Italian oil and vinegar
• Garlic alone or paprika alone would go with most salads as would plain salt and pepper!  
• You could also leave the cubes unseasoned, but that would be boring!   

Toss again to distribute the seasoning.

Bake for 7-14 minutes until evenly toasted on all sides.  Stir halfway through to insure even cooking.  You will need to learn the timing that works best with your oven.  In our toaster oven, I bake for 7 minutes, stir, and then bake another 7 minutes.  If the cubes are still white-ish on one side they will be chewy and we prefer our croutons crispy. 

Remove from the oven and store in an airtight glass jar to retain crispness. 

These are good on salad, of course, but they're also good on creamy soups!

P.S.  I JUST discovered that these make a great snack when you want something savory but don't want to cook...grab a few croutons!

 

RECIPE: Asparagus and Saffron Risotto

Many years ago, there was a small restaurant on La Salle Street in Chicago, La Locanda, whose specialty was risotto.  They offered classes on how they made their risotto.  I took their class and this is one of the recipes I came away with.  (There is another restaurant in Chicago now, called Locanda, but that is NOT the same restaurant!)

La Locanda's Asparagus and Saffron Risotto

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS:

• Saffron extract:
• 1 teaspoon saffron threads
• 1 quart water
• Risotto:
• 3/4 c. minced onion
• 1 T. minced garlic 
• 2 T. EVOO (I use ghee)
• 2 cups (1 pound) arborio rice (you can use carnaroli if that's what you have, but my preference is vialone nano)
• 1/2 c. white wine
• 6 cups hot broth**
• himalayan pink salt to taste (necessary if your broth is unsalted)
  
• 3 T. butter 1/4 cup heavy cream*
• 3 cups asparagus, cut in 1/2" pieces and blanched until tender (I would use 4-5 cups!***)
  
• 1/2 c. peeled, seeded and diced tomatoes
• 1 cup grated parmesan cheese

INSTRUCTIONS:

Make saffron extract: combine the saffron and the water in a small sauce pan and boil for 20 minutes.  Strain out the saffron threads and simmer the extract until reduced to 2 cups.  Set aside 1/2 c. for this recipe and refrigerate the rest for another use.  (This will keep in the fridge for 1 week.  After that the color will fade but it will still taste good.)

Saffron extract beginning thru boiling thru gorgeous color extract!

Make risotto: 

In a large saute pan or everything pan, saute the onions and garlic over medium high until the onions are transluscent and the garlic is fragrant.  Add the rice and saute for a minute or two until it becomes opaque.  Add the wine and reduce by half.

Gradually add 5.5 cups of the stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring and maintaining a simmer, until it has all been absorbed.  This should take 20 minutes and the rice should be almost cooked.  Cut one grain in half and there should be a small dot of white in the center.

Add salt to taste, the asparagus and the remaining half cup of stock and stir until the rice is fully cooked and the asparagus is heated through, another 3-4 minutes. Stir in the saffron extract, tomato, cream butter and parmesan.  

Serve in a soup plate with additional grated parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

NOTES:

*Many years ago, when I discovered my best friend couldn't eat cheese, I started making risotto with cream instead of parmesan, and we love it that way because it's extra creamy.  In the photos for this recipe, I used butter, because that's what La Locanda used, and we both missed having the cream, so from now on I will use cream instead.  I will still use the parmesan.

**I used the ends of the asparagus to make a broth with leeks and celery, and I used that to blanch the asparagus for the risotto.  I mixed some of the leftover asparagus-end broth with the chicken broth that I used to cook the rice.  

Chopped asparagus ends, leeks and celery simmering to make broth

In the future, I probably will not go to this trouble, but it was a way for me to use something that would otherwise have been thrown away, and the broth was delicious.  It would have made a nice light soup.

***The photos all show the recipe the way La Locanda gave it to me, using 3 cups of asparagus, but we actually prefer a higher veg:rice ratio.  From now on, I will use 4-5 cups of asparagus. 

To serve with the risotto: I brined two chicken breasts for several hours in a garlic-honey-lemon brine, and then roasted them at 425F for 15 minutes.  The chicken was so tender we could cut it with a spoon, it was wonderful with the risotto, and dead easy!  I also made carrots with a saffron-honey glaze.

When I reheated the risotto, I added a little bit of cream, and you can see in the photo below how much creamier it is.  

Risotto with a tad of cream, garlic-lemon chicken, saffron-honey carrots

RECIPE: ASPARAGUS - different ways to prepare it

I was lucky enough to snag 5 pounds of BIODYNAMIC asparagus from Groh Farm last weekend!  There was a mix of green and purple, large and small.  Here's what I did with it:

Five+ pounds of biodynamic asparagus!

 

After washing all of it, I separated it into small and large, then into green and purple.  The purple supposedly is sweeter and less bitter so I wanted to cook it separately. 

Rather than cut the ends off neatly, I used a trick I learned many years ago to determine where the edible part ends and the fibrous part starts - I bend the stalk until it breaks.  It will break where the edible part ends.  I saved all the fibrous ends, which have lots of flavor, to make broth.

 

The first recipe I made was Veal Meatballs in Asparagus Cream Sauce!  Using the thinnest stalks, I steamed them until soft and then pureed them, adding the puree to the sauce.  The green color degrades after 5 minutes of cooking so using the thinnest stalks, which cook quickly, results in a very green puree.  I reserved the water I steamed them with to use in broth.

Steamed skinny asparagus pureed

 

Pureed asparagus stirred into spicy cream sauce for meatballs.

 

Next, I made a broth from the ends.  I chopped them in my food processor, added sliced leeks and celery, then simmered them in water for 20 minutes.  I removed them from the heat and let the vegetables cool in the water, then strained them out.  

Chopped asparagus ends, leeks, celery broth

This left me with about 3 pounds of nice fat stalks ready to cook.  I stored them in glass jars with a little water on the bottom to keep them fresh until I could cook them.

Fat green asparagus, trimmed by bending the ends until the stalk breaks.

Trimmed asparagus, in water, stored in fridge.

The green asparagus were used to make Asparagus Saffron Risotto.  I used the broth to blanch the asparagus and then reduced it to 4 cups.  I used 2 cups to make the risotto, and chilled the rest for later..  

Asparagus and Saffron Risotto

The purple asparagus I steamed and served with garlic butter so we can see whether they really are sweeter than the green ones: They are a LITTLE sweeter, but not much.  

RECIPE: La Locanda Make-ahead Risotto Base

Many years ago, I took a risotto class at La Locanda, a restaurant in Chicago which has long since closed.  At the restaurant, they would make a risotto base, and then flavor it for each diner.  I have since learned that cooked and cooled rice is rich in resistant starch, and better for blood sugar, so I am posting the recipe.  Here's how they did it.

La Locanda Restaurant Make-ahead Risotto Base

Serves 8-12 (see below, only half the base is used at one time)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 cups mined onion
• 2 T. mined garlic
• 1/4 cup EVOO or ghee
• 4 cups arborio, carnaroli, or vialone nano rice
• fresh finely ground black pepper to taste
• 1 c. white wine
• 2 quarts hot stock
• 6 T. butter 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Heat a large (12" or larger) saute or risotto pan over medium high heat.  When the pan is hot, add the cold oil, then the onions and garlic, and saute until the onions are soft.

Add the rice and a good grind of black pepper.  Saute stirring constantly until rice is translucent, 2-3 minutes.  Do NOT let it burn! 

Add the wine and reduce by 1/2.  Slowly add the stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and maintaining a simmer, until all the stock has been absorbed.  Stir in the butter and remove from the heat.

The rice will be three-quarters cooked at this point and can be chilled and held until you're ready to add the seasoning agents.  

Spread the rice on a cookie sheet to cool it quickly.  Then store it in a glass container in the fridge for several days.  Bring to room temperature before using.

To use it:

Heat 2 cups of stock in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add:

• half the rice, 
• 1 c. grated parmesan cheese, and 
• whatever seasoning you're going to use (see below).   

Stir until the rice is tender.  Serves 6.

Seasoning options:

Sauteed spinach and mushrooms

Blanched asparagus and saffron extract

Blanched spring vegetables (asparagus, peas, carrots, tomatoes and spring onions)

Sauteed butternut squash dice, fried sage, and toasted pine nuts 

Taleggio cheese (instead of the parmesan), red bell pepper, and minced parsley

Cannellini beans, diced cooked tomato, minced parsley, and minced basil  

 

RECIPE: Hot Pepper Oil

When I made the Nashville Hot Chicken Milanese for the first time, there was leftover hot oil, and we slathered it on rice, pasta, vegetables, dal, meatloaf, and - of course - chicken!  I make it now with less sugar, and I vary the pepper variety based on what I'll be doing with it - sometimes I use a very hot pepper, sometimes a mild one.  Every variation is delicious!  If you use a mild chili like Black Urfa, it won't be as red...  This oil is liquid gold - I drizzle it on everything!  The color was hard to capture - it's a gorgeous red, after all the peppers have settled to the bottom of the jar.

Hot Pepper Oil

Makes 1.25 cups

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup avocado oil

2 t. light brown sugar (I use coconut sugar) 

2 t. himalayan pink salt 

1 t. dried dill

1 t. garlic powder

1 T. mild very red pepper like Pure Indian Food's  Kashmiri  

1-2 T hot red pepper like cobanero, cayenne, or Burlap and Barrel's hot kashmiri 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

In a small sauce pan, add brown sugar, salt, mild red pepper, dill, garlic powder, and 1 T. hot red pepper to the 1 cup avocado oil and stir to combine.  Add up to 1 T. additional hot pepper to taste.  

Heat on medium, stirring occasionally until oil is hot but not boiling. 

Use immediately, or store it in the fridge and drizzle it on hot or cold food.

I store this in a tall thin glass jar (please don't use plastic!) so that I can skim the seasoned oil off the top, and my husband can dig down and scoop up the ground peppers.  The oil is not as hot when used without the peppers. 

 

Here's how it looks drizzled on white rice, broccoli and masoor dal:

 

 

RECIPE: Tomato Bisque

This is not the easiest tomato soup. It's a lot of work, and a lot of pots, but it's the best flavor I've ever found.  My husband declared it's his "new favorite soup" ("new" because I haven't made it in 15 years!).  The original recipe was in Bon Appetit's January 1980 issue and is no longer available so here are my notes.

Tomato Bisque

serves 3-4

INGREDIENTS:

• For the tomato base:
• 1/4 pound bacon
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1.5 large onions, minced (about 1.5 cups)
• 6 celery stalks, minced (about 1 cup)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 t. dried thyme 
• 28 oz can tomatoes, diced with their juice*
• 6 oz tomato paste*
• For the cream base: 
• 2 T. butter
• 3 T. flour (I used oat flour)
  
• 1 quart cream (I used 2 c. evaporated farm milk** + 2 cups cream)
• 1/2 large onion, minced (about 1 cup)
• 1 bay leaf 
• 2 whole cloves 
• For serving:
• 2 t. salt
• 1/4 - 1 t. cayenne pepper depending on your heat tolerance (I use espelette)
• OPTIONAL: halloumi croutons
  

INSTRUCTIONS:

Heat heat butter in a large saucepan on medium heat.  Stir in flour and simmer stirring constantly for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and slowly add cream, whisking constantly, then the minced onion, 1 bay leaf and cloves.    Cook over medium heat, uncovered, for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.  (Mine was nice and thick after 30 minutes so I turned the heat to very low until the tomato base was ready.)

Meanwhile:

Cook bacon in a large skillet until fat is rendered.  Remove meat (use as desired).

Add garlic to fat and saute on medium until light brown - don't let it burn.  Add the minced onion, celery, bay leaf, and thyme.  Saute until onion is transparent.  Add tomatoes with juice and tomato paste.   Reduce heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Strain the cream base through a fine-mesh strainer into the tomato mixture.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.  

Add milk if a thinner consistency is preferred.

Can be reheated. 

*During tomato season, I home-can roasted tomato puree.  I use 2 cups of this puree, plus a 4-5 whole tomatoes (either canned or fresh) peeled and seeded, instead of the 28oz can of tomatoes and the tomato paste. You can see the jar of roasted tomato puree at the back of the photo below.

**When I have farm milk that needs to be used I pour it into a stock pot and simmer it on medium heat until it is reduced by 60%, then I strain it into quart jars and refrigerated it.  The dog LOVES the milk solids I strain out.  I used 2 cups of this as half of the cream in this recipe.  

Ingredients for tomato bisque excluding salt and espelette

Tomato bisque without croutons

 

RECIPE: Baked Feta with Olives and Cherry Tomatoes

This is an easy and delicious appetizer.  In summer, I use fresh cherry tomatoes, in winter I used oven dried farm tomatoes.  The olives are biodynamic, from Mercola.  Sheep's milk feta has more fat than cow's milk and will bake up softer, but the feta in the farm store is delicious prepared this way.

I know the photo isn't inspiring, but that's my camera's fault - the cheese was better than it looks!

Baked Feta with Olives and Cherry Tomatoes

I've made this in small individual serving dishes, and also in a larger communal one.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 block of feta  
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved, or 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes chopped
• 1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 c. thinly sliced red or green onions
• 1 t. dried oregano
• 1 T. finely sliced mint leaves
• Optional: red pepper flakes, ground black pepper, lemon zest 
• For serving: pit bread

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 400F. (I use our toaster oven for this)

Combine all the ingredients except the feta and mix to combine.

In a heatproof dish, pour the mixture over the feta.  Bake for 15 minutes.

Serve with pitas!

RECIPE: PEONY Flower Jelly/Syrup!!

O.M.G.  What a gorgeous color!  I made it ONLY for the color, thinking I would not like the flavor, but it tastes good, too!   

Our peonies are pushing their heads out of the ground now, and I'm planning to make this again this year, so I'm posting it now as a reminder.

I used this recipe as a guide, but I made a lot of changes to create and preserve the color.  If you don't care about the color, just follow her recipe which is much easier.  I also only made a half recipe because we don't eat many sweet things.

PEONY Flower Jelly/Syrup

Makes about 2.5 cups

Here's a photo of the peonies in our garden, raised without chemicals.  We have two dark pink, two light pink, and one magenta.  

the 5 peony bushes in our garden, in full bloom

My goal was to make a magenta-color jelly that was obviously NOT raspberry or strawberry.  I also didn't want a lavender/violet color that might be confused with violet jelly.  So...I started with 3 dark pink blossoms, from the bushes at the far left side of the photo above, harvested right before they were fully open.  The pot I'm using is a Le Creuset with a white interior so I can see the color of the liquid:

When I removed the petals, they seemed to be much lighter than I wanted, but I proceeded anyway to see what color they produced.  When I poured 2 cups of boiling water over them, they turned purple!  I let them steep for 20 minutes.

Here's what the water looked like when I removed the petals - it was lighter than I wanted.

3 peony blossoms, in boiling water, and drained

So...I harvested one of our very dark blossoms (I will see if I can find the cultivars we have), added the petals to the water, brought it quickly to a boil, and let it steep for 20 minutes.  

The water was darker now (see the middle image in the photo below), but not quite what I was after, so I harvested another very dark blossom.   After adding the petals to the water, bringing it quickly to a boil, letting it steep for 20 minutes and then removing the petals, the liquid was finally the color I was after!  

1 dark peony was better, but a 2nd one was perfect!

I poured the liquid into a measuring cup - I now had just shy of 2 cups of gorgeous magenta water!  I poured it back into my pot and added 2 cups of caster sugar (yes, conventional white sugar because I didn't want to muddy the color!).  

The original recipe now instructs you to add lemon juice, but I was afraid it would change the color so I removed 1 teaspoon to a small custard cup and added a few drops of lemon juice.  Sure enough, the lemon juice removed all the blue tones in the color and it looked to me like raspberry/strawberry. I did NOT add the lemon juice. 

My next 'problem' was that I don't stock pectin, because I prefer not to use it, so I had no way of getting my jelly to gel!  Knowing there is pectin in lemon seeds, I gathered up the pits from the lemon I had just juiced and added them to the pot.  If it didn't gel enough, I would settle for syrup instead of jelly.  

In the photo below, on the left, you can see the color of the two varieties of peony petals after boiling - it's amazing how different they are.  On the right is the syrup ready to be reduced:

Two different varieties of peony petals, and syrup ready to be reduced.

I brought the liquid to a boil, and let it simmer until it was syrupy.  I didn't want to cook it too long, for fear the color would change, so I killed the heat as soon as it was thick enough to be useful, and poured it into canning jars.  There was a little bit left over so I poured that into a custard cup.  When it was cool enough, I tasted it and it was delicious!   I thought I wouldn't like the floral taste but it was really nice!

I ended up with 2.5 cups of syrup which I poured into one 1/2-pint jar and three 1/2-cup jars.  The gorgeous color isn't as apparent in the jars:

Peony syrup in jars

Once the jars were cool, I stored them in the fridge.  I haven't decided how to use them yet...

2.5 cups of peony syrup in jars

Here, finally, is the recipe I will use if I ever make this again:

INGREDIENTS

• 3 dark pink peonies and 2 magenta peonies
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups white sugar
• 30 lemon pits, or 1/2 box powdered pectin (I don't know if pectin will change the color!) 

DIRECTIONS

Harvest the freshest, cleanest peonies from your garden, almost but not fully open.  Holding the stem, gently pull the petals off and discard the stamens and any petals with green at the base.  You need about 4-6 cups of petals.  

Put the petals in a medium saucepan and cover them with boiling water.  Let them steep for 15-20 minutes.  Hopefully, the water will be the color you want.  If it's too light, you can add another blossom or two.  If it's too dark, you can try adding more water.   

Place a strainer over a large measuring pitcher and strain out the petals. Press on them HARD to get as much color out of them as possible!

Take note of how much water is in the measuring pitcher and pour the liquid back into the saucepan. 

If you're using powdered pectin, follow the instructions on the package.  Apparently, you add the pectin first, let it dissolve, and then add the sugar.  You can reduce the sugar to as little as 1/2 cup.  The original instructions say that the lemon juice helps the mixture set properly.  I don't know if it will set if  you don't add the lemon.

If you aren't using commercial pectin, add an equal amount of sugar, the lemon pits, and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and continue to boil until it's the consistency you want. 

Pour the syrup into jars, cool, and store in the fridge.

NOTE: I gave one of the small jars to a friend, and after a year in her fridge a gorgeous crystal formed!  Wouldn't that be amazing to drop into a cup of tea?

Peony syrup crystal!

RECIPE: Thai-inspired Broccoli and White Bean Soup

I needed a quick and easy dinner last night, so I defrosted some broccoli intending to make broccoli cheddar beans, but then realized I didn't have any milk to make the sauce.  I did have coconut milk so I created this recipe to use that, and we both enjoyed it so much I'm sharing it.  I doubt you would ever find this in Thailand, because of the beans, but we loved it.  This soup is SPICY!!!

Thai-inspired Broccoli and White Bean Soup

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 T. coconut oil
• 3 T. green curry paste (I use Mekhala Organic)
• 1/4 cup minced garlic
• 1/4 cup minced ginger
• 1 14oz can full-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 T. Red Boat Fish Sauce
• 3-4 kaffir lime leaves OR 2 t. minced lemongrass OR a few large strips of lime zest
• 2 15oz cans great northern beans including the liquid 
• 1 pound frozen broccoli, defrosted
• Garnish options:
• thinly sliced hot red pepper
• thinly sliced scallion greens
• cilantro leaves
• cooked rice (we often have cooked and cooled sela basmati in the fridge) 

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a 4-quart saute or sauce pan heat the coconut oil on medium and saute the curry paste, garlic and ginger for 4-5 minutes to take the edge off the garlic and ginger.

Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, fish sauce, the lime leaves/lemongrass/zest, and the beans including the liquid into the pot, stir to combine, and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for a few minutes to meld the flavors.  

Add the broccoli, bring back to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes.  Taste periodically to insure it's cooked to your liking.  Once it's cooked, turn off the heat to prevent overcooking.

Taste and add salt if necessary - depending on the brand of curry paste you use you may not need additional salt.  I did add about 2 teaspoons of salt.

Pick out the lime leaves or zest before serving.

Serve in bowls garnished with red pepper, scallions, cilantro and/or cooked rice.  Adding rice will give you a complete protein combined with the beans, if that's important to you.    

NOTE: This makes enough liquid that you could easily add additional broccoli and/or additional beans for a thicker soup if that is your preference.  If you add additional beans, drain them and don't use the liquid.

If you can't tolerate spicy food, look for a curry paste that isn't hot, or make your own.  Mekhala green is HOT!

RECIPE: EASY Beef Fajitas using Home Canned Beef

Every time we've tried to make fajitas using flank steak or skirt steak, they've been tough and stringy.  Perhaps it's the pasture-raised meat we use, or the fact that we never plan ahead and don't have time to marinate.  We also don't always want to bother with firing up the grill.  I developed this recipe to satisfy our beef fajita cravings without all that fuss.

EASY Beef Fajita using Home Canned Beef

Serves 6

• 1 quart jar home-canned beef stew meat
• 1/4. cup beef tallow or ghee
• 3 large onions, sliced 1/4" thick
• 4 cups bell peppers (green, red and yellow) sliced 1/4" thick
• 1 t. ground chipotle pepper
• 1 t. cayenne powder
• 1 t. garlic powder
• 1 t. ground cumin seeds
• 1/2 t. ground coriander seed
• 1 t. mexican oregano
• 2 t. salt
• For serving:
• 1 cup sour cream
• juice from 1/2 lime
• 1/4 cup minced cilantro leaves
  

Combine the spices and set aside.

Drain the beef reserving the liquid.

Heat 2 T. fat in a large saute pan over medium-high.  Add the onions and fry until light brown on the edges.  Stir infrequently - if you let them sit in the fat, the edges will brown before they cook through, which is what you want.  Remove to a small bowl leaving as much fat in the pan as possible.

Add 1 T. fat to the pan, raise the heat to high, and add the peppers.  Fry, stirring infrequently, until they're blackened in spots.  KEEP AN EYE ON THEM!  If you turn your back, the entire pan will burn (Yes, I did this!).  Remove to the bowl with the onions leaving as much fat in the pan as possible.

Reduce heat to med-high.  Add 1 T. fat to the pan and add the beef.  Fry, stirring infrequently, until the edges are lightly browned. 

Deglaze the pan with the reserved liquid and cook until it's mostly evaporated.

Add the onions, peppers, and the spice mixture to the pan, stir to combine, and cook until the vegetables are heated through.

 

While the meat is cooking, combine the sour cream, lime juice, and cilantro.  Mix well.

Serve with tortillas, guacamole or sliced avocado, the cilantro lime crema or cilantro jalapeno sauce.

In the photo above, I served it with Adriane's Tomato Salad with Coriander and Lime.