Meaty Spanish Rice

Mid-April. Week two off medication. The residual warmth is fading. The house is cooling. The anxiety is — there. Not screaming. Not murmuring. Speaking. The anxiety is speaking in full sentences now, in complete thoughts, in the language it always spoke but that the medication had been translating into something manageable. Without the translator, the language is direct: What if Miya gets sick? What if the car breaks down? What if the next blog post is bad? What if the book was a fluke? What if the cooking class fails? What if Ken dies? The what-ifs are an ocean and I am treading water and the water is cold and the shore is — where? The shore is the yoga mat. The shore is the dashi. The shore is the practice. The shore is always the practice.

I made nikujaga — the stew, the comfort, the food that says "sit down, eat, be cared for." The stew was for me. The caring-for was self-directed. The self-direction is the skill I have been building for ten years: the ability to care for myself, to feed myself, to make the food that holds me when no one else is holding me. The stew held. The stew always holds. The stew does not depend on serotonin. The stew depends on dashi and beef and potatoes and the thirty minutes of simmering that the recipe requires and that I provide, every time, regardless of the brain's weather.

I went to yoga — my own practice, not teaching — and the practice was hard. The body was present but the mind was loud, the thoughts racing, the anxiety chattering through every downward dog and warrior pose, the chatter saying: you cannot do this without the pill, you cannot live without the pill, the pill was the thing and the practice was the supplement and you have gotten rid of the thing and kept the supplement and the supplement is not enough. The chatter was convincing. The chatter was also wrong. The chatter is always wrong. The chatter is the anxiety's thesis statement and the thesis has been disproven by ten years of daily miso soup, by four hundred blog posts, by two books, by a daughter who reads Japanese, by a father who said "the book is good." The thesis is wrong. The evidence says so. But the chatter does not read evidence. The chatter only reads fear.

I made nikujaga that night, yes — but the week that followed asked for something I could make again and again without thinking too hard, something where the meat and the starch and the warmth did the work while my mind ran its laps. Meaty Spanish Rice became that recipe: a pot on the stove, ground beef browning, the smell of cumin pulling me back into my body the way dashi always does. The chatter does not stand a chance against a bubbling pot. That is not wishful thinking. That is ten years of evidence.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef (80/20)
1 cup long-grain white rice, uncooked
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
1 cup beef broth
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
Fresh cilantro or sliced green onions, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Brown the beef. Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking it apart, until no longer pink, about 5–6 minutes. Drain excess fat.
Sauté the vegetables. Add the diced onion and bell pepper to the skillet. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Toast the rice. Stir in the uncooked rice and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, letting the grains absorb the fat and begin to turn slightly golden.
Season and add liquids. Sprinkle in the cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt, and black pepper. Stir to coat. Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices, tomato sauce, and beef broth. Stir everything together.
Simmer until done. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 20–22 minutes, until the rice is tender and has absorbed most of the liquid. Check at the 18-minute mark — if the liquid is gone but the rice is not yet tender, add 2–3 tablespoons of water and cover for a few more minutes.
Rest and serve. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff gently with a fork, taste for seasoning, and serve topped with fresh cilantro or green onions if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Meaty Spanish Rice — The Stew That Holds When Nothing Else Does