Dear Lauren,

I handed your dad a cookbook last night and said, hey, take a look and see what looks good to you for the weekend. So he chose five recipes and marked them with those little 3m page stickers I like. Then he said, carne guisada sounds good.

Oh" Was that one of the recipes in the book"

No, I marked chicken fried steak, Iowa skinnies, biscuits and sausage gravy, Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches and funeral potatoes. But carne guisada sounds good.

I decided to come up with a recipe for the Instant Pot. Why Not" It's summer and who wants to heat up the kitchen with a stew on the stove or a braise in the oven" Not me.

This recipe is adapted from one I found early on in my internet research. Reading over it, I knew the complexity of flavor would be there. I made a few changes, including to the cooking method.  We loved it. Serve this over rice, in a tortilla, or simply as what it is, a stew - a spicy, Tex-Mex stew. You can garnish it with chopped onion, chopped cilantro, avocado, or anything else you like.
P.S. While I was cooking, my phone broke! I'm heartbroken! I have no photo for you. Dad has one photo on his phone of the very last bite. I'm not sure that's worthy of posting on this blog lol! I will be making this again soon, no doubt abut that, so I will update with a photo later.

1 teaspoon cumin
2 Tablespoons avocado oil, divided
1.5 pounds top sirloin, trimmed, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 small onion, sliced
1 jalapeno, seeded, ...