What a crock!

I'd been talking with some friends at the kids' school about cooking with a crockpot and some of them absolutely swear by it, so I finally got a new crockpot (our old one was way too small to make anything that would feed all five of us) and decided to give it a whirl. One of those friends sent a link to a crockpot cooking blog A Year of Crockpotting, where I found a recipe for ropa vieja, a Cuban beef dish that Mike really likes. It seemed easy enough - get the ingredients, put them into the crock, and let it go for the day. We even had most of the stuff for it, so there was minimal shopping involved (a big plus with 3 kids home for spring break!).

It turned out to be a phenomenal success! (I'll bet you thought I was going to say it was horrible.) Mike was home for the day on Saturday - his first day home in almost 2 weeks - so he took over after I got it set up and started and tinkered with it a little bit. Not much though, so what we had was pretty true to the recipe. He also made some Cuban rice to go with it that was fantastic. The one thing we forgot was bread, which would have been great for soaking up the sauce, but otherwise, it was a wonderful dinner and one we would definitely do again. And it was even better for lunch today.

Ropa Vieja

Ingredients:
--3 lbs meat (get what's on sale. Stew meat, chuck roast, steaks, whatever.)
--1/2 cup chicken broth
--1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (could use white)
--1 T cumin
--1 tsp smoked paprika
--1 tsp salt
--1/2 tsp black pepper
--1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
--1 large red onion, chopped
--2 red bell peppers, chopped
--2 med yellow apples, grated
--3 stalks celery, chopped
--3 cloves smashed and chopped garlic
--1/2 cup cilantro leaves


Directions:
I used a 6.5 quart crockpot. I think you'll need at least a 5 quart----this is a lot of food.

Combine all of the dry spices in a bowl. Rub the spices all over the piece (or pieces) of meat you are using. Put the meat into your crockpot. Dump any extra spice on top.
Coarsely chop the vegetables and add to the pot.
Smash the garlic, take the leaves off the cilantro stems, and add.
Peel the apples, and grate them into the pot with a cheese grater.
Add the chicken broth and vinegar.
Cover and cook on low for a very long time, or on high for a pretty long time. I'd go for at least 10 hours on low and at least 7 hours on high, checking about 2 hours before serving to see if you can shred the meat with forks. (This is when we added the tomatoes.) If you can't shred the meat, cook for longer, or remove the meat and cut in long slices, then return to the pot.
Ropa Vieja means "old clothes"---the meat and vegetables should be shreddy and fully intertwined. The longer and slower you cook this, the better. There is plenty of moisture from the chicken broth and vinegar---if you are a peeker, you may need to add more chicken broth; but otherwise, you'll get a good amount of juice at the bottom of the pot.
Serve over brown or white rice, with a ladle full of broth.


Cuban Yellow Rice

Ingredients:
1 cup converted rice
1 small red pepper (or green, or mix)
1 small onion
3 small cloves garlic
2-3 Tbs. vegetable oil
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/8 tsp. saffron, ground (or 2 Tbs. annato oil)
3 Tbs. boiling water
1 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. paprika (half hot, if desired)
1/8-1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
2 cups low salt chicken stock

Directions:
Measure spices. Steep saffron in boiling water.
Chop pepper, onion, and garlic to small dice. Saute in oil over medium heat until translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add rice, saute 3-4 minutes until rice is translucent.
Add spices and saffron water and cook another 30 seconds to 1 minute until the saffron water is absorbed and the rice turns deep yellow.
Add stock and peas, stir well.
Cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to rest undisturbed 10-15 minutes.
Remove lid, fluff with fork, and serve.