Slow Cooked Mexican Style Beef - Makes two meals

After my thrifty food posts and the weather becoming cooler, I thought I'd look at beef brisket again.  I mean I do love a good pot roast and love leftover cottage pie even more but woman cannot live by pot roast alone!

So I thought I'd mix up the flavours a bit and see if I could make a dish with a super easy leftover idea.

Slow Cooked Mexican Style Beef - Day 1 - serves 2 adults (or more if you don't want leftovers)

Ingredients

800g beef brisket
2 onions, cut into wedges
2 tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 chilli, chopped (without seeds)
125ml red wine
1 red, yellow or orange pepper (capsicum)
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 tsp smoked paprika

Method

Fry the onion in half the oil.  Put into a slow cooker with the garlic, chilli, pepper, tomatoes and paprika.

Fry the brisket in the remaining oil.  Put into the slow cooker.  Deglaze the pan with the red wine.

Cook on high for 1 hour and then low for at least 4 hours or until very tender.

Serve the meat with some of the vegetables if liked (drain off but keep the juices), add avocado, coriander (cilantro), sliced raw onion, tomato and avocado if liked.  Add seasoning if you like, maybe some pickled jalapenos if you really must and devour.  (Keep a napkin on hand!)

Mindblowingly delicious if a little messy.

Chill the leftover beef and sauce for the next day.

Slow Cooked Beef Chilli (day 2) - serves 2 generously

Ingredients

Left over beef and sauce from the previous day
1 tin of cooked red kidney beans (or pinto beans or mixed beans if you prefer)

Rice to serve

Method

Take the beef out of the sauce and put on a plate.  Spoon the sauce into a saucepan and start to heat.  Drain and rinse the beans and add to the pan.

Put the rice on to cook and cut up the beef into chunks.  Add to the saucepan and simmer gently until everything is warmed through.

Once the rice is cooked, serve with the chilli and any avocado / coriander you have left if liked.

Make it Thrifty:

Brisket is a cheaper cut and by cooking it in a slow cooker, the electricity costs are vastly reduced (I've heard that the power used by a slow cooker is similar to a light bulb.  Not sure if it's true but it's certainly much less than an oven.)  Make it cheaper still by missing out the avocado and coriander.  You could bulk out the chilli further to serve 4 by cutting up the beef into smaller chunks and adding a tin of pinto beans as well.



I've sent this in for approval for "the spice trail" challenge which for November 2013 is on chillis!