With a Few Simple Ingredients and a Seven Year-Old, We Can Conquer the World...or at Least, Make Dinner!

It's rainy and dreary, the perfect time for a one skillet wonder--warm, and belly-filling, with common ingredients, and a low dishwashing commitment. Nacho Beef Skillet comes from a family-famous paper Pillsbury cookbook given to me by my sister when I was visiting her about 10 years ago, because she had two copies.

The date on the cover is September 2002.

Please, cast no haughty glances toward my humble paper cookbook. I count no fewer than nine recipes, all of them using beef that have become a part of our menus from this tiny volume. When I have an extra supply of ground beef, this is my go to resource. I learned all about quesadillas within these very pages.

(I may be a bit sentimental about this cookbook, sorry. But NINE recipes! Just saying')

Back to the dish. Here's all that you'll need:

Ingredients:
{Printable Recipe HERE}

1 pound ground beef

1 1/2 cups water

1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (with chilies if desired)

1-2 cups of frozen corn (or a can drained if you have that instead)

1 envelope Spanish Rice & Sauce mix (mine from WalMart but just like the packets Lipton/Knorr makes)

1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese for topping

Oh, and a seven year-old with a pink flower in her hair, who...

...knows how to operate a can opener!

While she's at it, we'll just let her make dinner...

First brown or "scramble" as Kate says, the beef, breaking it in to small pieces with the side of a spoon or your handy-dandy kitchen tool.

After the beef is scrambled, drain off the fat if you need to.

The rest is simply a matter of adding ingredients to the skillet. 

Add 1 1/2 cup water.

The can of diced tomatoes, undrained.

Add the corn, as much as your family likes is definitely the way to go here.

Nest the Spanish rice mix, ole!

Now...stir, preferably after you've painted your fingernails bright blue.

 Once your creation has come to a gentle bubbling, reduce the heat to medium-low and 

cover your skillet, ours has no lid so we made one...

Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the rice has been cooked well.

While you're waiting, it is essential that you change clothes and your hair accessory and don your glasses from Claire's before reappearing in the kitchen for the big reveal and the final step...

Now, sprinkle cheese on top and call the gang for dinner!

We eat this dish a few different ways: plain in a bowl, wrapped in burrito shells, or on nacho chips! Feel free to add a little heat with chopped green chilies or a shake or two of Texas Pete or Sriracha sauce.  Anyway you like it it's a yummy, easy, one-pot wonder!

Enjoy!