4 medium potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 cup scallions, chopped
1/4 cup sour cream
salt and pepper
water

1. Boil potatoes in salted water until fork tender, then slice into 1/4" portions.
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add potato slices, frying until browned on both sides, about 2 minutes per side.
3. Remove from heat. Stir in scallions and cheddar cheese. Top with sour cream just before serving.

Makes 4 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
7 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
3 pounds lean ground beef
5 ounces capers, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup hot sauce
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 bay leaves
40 ounces stewed tomatoes
salt and pepper

1. Heat half the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add the garlic, onions and green pepper and sauté until onions are tender. Remove the vegetables from the pot and reserve.
2. Add the remaining oil and ground beef to the pot and cook until beef is no longer pink.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate sauce pan over medium heat, add the capers, vinegar, hot sauce, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Simmer while the beef cooks to reduce to a thick sauce.
4. Combine the onion, garlic and peppers with the caper sauce and add everything to the ground beef, along with the tomatoes.
5. Reduce the heat and cook uncovered until a portion of the tomato liquid has evaporated and flavors have a chance to meld, at least an hour.
6. Spoon over cooked white rice to serve.

Makes 12 servings

I thought it would be interesting to try making Picadillo; a South American dish that is flavored with cinnamon and cloves. It also gave me an excuse to use more (now not-so) fresh bay leaves, which have been keeping remarkably well in the fridge and were definitely worth the investment. I haven't had much experience with savory dishes using things like cinnamon, so I just went to work with the recipe at hand. Unfortunately, I thought that the results were horrible. This is probably no fault of the recipe, but just personal preference.

When I cook with ground beef, I tend to prefer the dried out parts that sort of clump together. The vinegar in this dish really helped to tenderize the meat and smoothed out any potential chunking or drying out altogether. The texture reminded me of canned meat sauce. I suppose that could be a desirable thing to some, but to me it was unpleasant. The flavor left much to be desired as well, being predominantly overrun with caper. The cinnamon and clove came through a bit, but not in any way that wowed me.

The Cheesy Fried Potatoes didn't really satisfy me either. I wasn't particularly in the mood for a cheese laden starch, but I was low on groceries and ambition, so I just went with it. I ended up throwing the whole lot away, down the toilet to meet up with other failures like Baby Bok Choy in Fish Sauce.