Picadillo

This recipe is excellent. I've made it several times and it tastes better every time. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com a few years ago. Its the ultimate comfort food and we all know how I feel about comfort foods. It can be served over rice or used as filling for empanadas. The cinnamon and bay leaf make the recipe so don't leave them out! I leave out the tomatoes and just add tomato sauce, cayenne, and sofrito.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

7 cloves garlic, chopped

1 medium-large onion

1 medium-large green bell pepper, chopped

2 pounds ground beef or chuck

5 ounces pitted olives, halved

5 ounces capers, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2 dried bay leaves

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1 can tomato sauce

1/2 cup cilantro sofrito

1. In a large stock pot, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Saute onion and green pepper until onions are transparent. Add sofrito and garlic, saute another a minute or so. Remove from heat. In a separate saucepan, brown the ground beef.
2. Add the olives, capers, vinegar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne, bay leaves and tomato sauce to the onion-sofrito mixture. Return to heat and let simmer over low heat for 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally.

*Note: You can do this in one pan/pot. Start by browning the ground beef in the pan. Remove it and set aside. Then use the beef drippings in place of olive oil and follow the recipe from there.