• 1 lb beef sliced into strips
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 2 tablespoons butter
• chili powder
• cumin
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• cayenne
• salt
• black pepper
• honey
• basil
• a few ounces of canned tomato sauce

The secret to making this good is: don’t be afraid to over-spice this. The second most important thing to remember is that your meat will cook quickly. Start with a hot pan with all of your butter and soften your diced pepper. Make sure to have your rice cooked beforehand because this is going to go quick. While the rice was cooking I covered all of the meat with salt, pepper and chili powder.

Once the bell pepper has softened, toss in your meat and cover it with the rest of your spices as it browns. I used everything quite heavily in almost equal amounts. The honey can come next, use maybe two to three tablespoons. This process should take no more than a minute because your meat is close do being done. Dump in the tomato sauce, reduce to a simmer and stir in your rice. Let me remind you, don’t be afraid to use too much cumin, chili powder or cayenne. After a few more minutes, your meal is done.

You can stretch this meal by adding half an onion to this recipe and serving with warm tortillas. For a side serve some re-fried beans however you like them.

• 1 part olive oil
• 3/4 part red wine vinegar
• Pinch of salt
• Dash of dried basil leaves
• Pinch of black pepper
• Drops of sesame seed oil
• Pinch of garlic powder

With the oil in a bowl, add your dry ingredients first and allow a few minutes for the oil to infuse. Add the pure sesame seed oil and then whisk in the red wine vinegar with a fork until the color is uniform.

June Salad:

• 1 part chard
• 1 part romaine lettuce
• 4 radishes
• Sprigs of parsley
• Capers
• Dash of paprika

Rinse the vegetables well. Pull apart, by hand, the chard, lettuce and parsley. Layer in your bowl if you are only serving one and wish to skip the tossing stage. Slice the radishes and arrange on top of the salad. Top with capers, drizzle vinaigrette and sprinkle with paprika.

Eat.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound pork ribs, mine didn’t have bones for some reason
• paprika
• salt
• black pepper
• crushed red pepper
• maple syrup
• basil
• onion powder
• 4 oz can of diced chiles

I always salt and pepper my meat for anywhere from five minutes to half-an-hour. It’s a good habit to get into. Tell you why later. After generously covering my ribs with salt and pepper, I dashed in some onion powder and then generously covered each piece with paprika. Covering the meat so that you can’t see the meat anymore, only in spots. Dash a bit of basil and then spread crushed red pepper all over.

After about fifteen minutes, long enough for the oven to pre-heat to 325, I lay the meat in a single layer in my skillet. I don’t have a pan for the oven and I probably won’t buy one for a while. My pots and pans do a fine enough job of it. Before I built a cute little tent out of tinfoil, I soaked each piece in maple syrup. Taking care not to disturb the dry rub, I placed the syrup on each piece carefully. The syrup should be thick enough to not wash off your rub.

Before placing in the oven for an hour, I made sure that I had maybe an 1/8th of an inch to a 1/4 of an inch of water in my pan before closing the aluminum foil tent just barely enough so that steam could escape.

An hour later I tossed in a can of diced chiles, turned the heat up to 375 and then browned the meat for another 12 minutes. This stuff ended up tasting pretty good. I wasn’t disappointed.

I still had some brown rice from the food co-op and it made for a nice filler tossed with a couple drops of liquid smoke and a hint of mustard.

Minimal effort, happy tummy.

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather and I really only have spices in my pantry so I walked down to the corner store and bought an onion and a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup.

• 1 (one) can Chicken Noodle condensed soup
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 dried red Chile peppers
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 cap-full vermouth
• 1/4th cup diced onion

The only painful step was dicing the garlic and onion and having to use a separate dish to sweat them a little. I like to keep my onions bitter so I only threw them in after the smell of garlic filled the room. After throwing in the onions I immediately turned the heat off and mixed with the rest of the ingredients that were already warming on another burner.

Hope I get better.

p.s. if you have time, soak the dried chiles ahead of time. I got about three bowls of soup out of this. Of course, I ate them all by myself.