Arriba! Mexican Shredded Beef!

You know when you buy a piece of meat on sale and you maybe cut it in half and freeze one-a the halves for later use? Can’t it be so easy to forget about that frozen hunk-a meat?! When we recently bought a rather large pot roast on sale, I vowed that when placed half in a freezer bag that I would not let it go to waste. And this past Sunday, we cooked up that wonder cut of beef and made it into the most succulent, delicious Mexican, shredded beef I’ve ever had. Shredded beef is a great change-up for tacos and nachos, etc. We use many different proteins in our Mexican, hamburger, ground turkey, chicken…but this was SO dang good and we’d always wanted to try it. Besides…after my daughter announced, the last time we had actual pot roast dinner – that she didn’t like pot roast – I knew we had to try something different with it….and you know what? She liked it! Ha!

All you have to do is make up the rub, poke garlic into the meat and toss it all in a crock pot with onions and peppers and leave it for 7 hours. I’m telling you it could not be any simpler! Totally give this a try – you will be glad you did J Yum, yum, yum!

Start by poking a few slits into the roast and filling each one with a peeled clove of garlic….
Spoon all of the rub ingredients into a bowl and mix’em up good – then rub’m all over the meat. Next, slice up the two jalapenos, onion and green pepper... Massage both sides of the roast with the rub, put it in the crock pot, cover with the peppers ands onions and pour in the liquid. It’ll seem like a very small amount if liquid, but trust me….this pot’ll brew up plenty of wonderful ‘juice’!

Cover the pot and go about your busy day for approx 7 hours for a 3 ½ pound roast.

Once it’s done, slap that chunk-a beauty meat down on a cutting board. Trust me, you’ll only need to use a fork to ‘smash’ through the meat as it be practically falling apart on itself – Note…remove any fat and all other ‘oogeys’ as you go! No one wants to bite into a blobbity! Leave the garlic cloves whole...smash through them or remove them – you’re choice. We left them whole – see – there’s one at about 9 o’clock!
Return meat to flavorful, brothy liquid until ready to serve. Depending on what you’re gonna do with it, you may choose to strain the meat (save the broth!) or simply let it drain of into the pot as you use tongs to remove servings of the tender, beef.
Now that your meat is done, you can use it in any way you choose..but here's what we did. We heated up some pinto beans (not refried beans...the whole ones are better here – and placed a few beans and some of the beef on a warmed small corn or flour tortilla.
Then dressed with a little lettuce, cilantro, tomatoes - (and some cheese if you choose) – all that was left to do then was to dig into juicy, beefy heaven!

Mexican Shredded Beef

Ingredients:
3 ½ to 4 pound pot roast
6 cloves garlic – peeled
1 tablespoon paprika (or smoked paprika)
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
1 large onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
2 jalapeno chili peppers, seeded & sliced
4 fluid ounces beer (can sub beef broth or cola)
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoons liquid smoke flavoring
1 can rotelle tomatoes with chilies and cilantro
1 can green salsa verde

Directions:
Poke as many holes in roast as garlic cloves you have, and push a clove into each hole. Combine all spices in a bowl, mix together and rub all over both sides of meat and place roast in crock pot. Slice onion and peppers and scatter over roast in pot. Combine all liquid/wet ingredients (last 5 ingredients) and pour over veggies & meat in pot. Place lid on crock pot and cook on low setting for 7 hours. Remove meat to cutting board or platter and shred with a fork. Return meat to liquid in pot and keep warm until ready to use. If not using right away, you can keep meat in it’s liquid in the fridge. A thin, top layer of fat will form on top once chilled in refrigerator. Once ready to reheat, you may choose to discard this or you can mix it back in as mixture reheats.