Shredded Beef & grilled Papaya

Cinco De Awesome Shredded Beef with Grilled Papaya

 Come Celebrate Cinco De Mayo with me and this guy.

 Cinco De Mayo?! More like Cinco De Awesome! What's that mean? You know I don't speak Spanish! I just thought it sounded AWESOME!! I thought I'd be one of those douche bags who isn't even Mexican but goes out and celebrates Cinco Day Mayo and parties my face off like the Mexican Revolution saved my life. I like to add Cinco De Mayo to my list of other holidays that I party my face off to even though I have no idea what they are about. Such as; Fiesta De Las Cruces, Indian Heritage Day, Gospel Day, Ho Chi Minh's Birthday, Holiday of Poetry, Sheep Festival, World Turtle Day and Sorry Day. That's just one week out of my schedule. Don't believe that these exists? Check out my link.

Holidays Around the World

So, let us be like all of the other jackwagons out there and use this upcoming holiday as an excuse to party our faces off. Because drinking in a fake sombrero makes drinking so much more acceptable.

 Cinco De Mayo falls on a Saturday so you have no excuse not to make this tasty shredded beef recipe. Well, if you are celebrating International Midwives day or Senior Citizens day in Palua I will let it slide.

Cinco De Awesome Shredded Beef with Grilled Papaya

I let this roast cook slowly over night in a crock pot, in the morning I turned it to "warm". I came home around 7pm and shredded it. Super easy and tasty! Served with homemade guacamole and a coleslaw!

Ingredients:

Sauce

-1/2 onion diced

-3 garlic cloves, minced

-1 large can of tomato sauce

-1 can of Salsa Ranchera (in the Spanish/Mexican--whatever it's called-- section of most grocery stores)

-1 TSP garlic powder

-1 TBS ground cumin

-2 TBS olive oil

-1 Roast (I used a 4# boneless beef roast of sorts. I had Mike pick it out for me)

- 3 carrots, shredded

-1/2 onion, chopped

-1/2 cup beef broth

-1 papaya, seeded and cut into quarters

Directions:

-In a saucepan heat olive oil over medium/low heat

-Add onion and minced garlic, cook until onion becomes slightly translucent

-Add tomato sauce, salsa ranchera and spices

-Bring to a slight boil then remove from heat

-Place the roast in a crock pot with the onion and shredded carrot and the beef broth 

-Pour the red sauce over the roast

-Cook on low heat over night or through out the day. (about 8 hours)

-When you are ready to serve remove roast from the pot. There is going to be a lot of "sauce", the roast should have been completely covered by it. 

-Allow the roast to cool slightly and begin to shred by hand. 

-Put shredded beef in bowl.

-Ladle sauce from the crock pot over the shredded beef. Just enough so it's moist and saucy. Not soupy or too runny.

For the papaya

-Turn on your grill!! ( I sprayed mine with olive oil cooking spray so it wouldn't stick)

 -Cut into quarters and remove seeds

-Place on grill with the skin/outside down first...I Probably left it on for about 7-ish minutes until there was slight charring of the skin.

-Flip and cook on the fleshy side until there is sight charring again! 

I also made Paleo Comfort Food's "Tastiest Slaw Ever". But, I can only find the recipe in their cookbook. So you should obviously purchase it or else you are missing out.

Get Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook here for the best price 

Bang Bang, enjoy.

Chipotle Sweet Potato salad with a side of no fish

 Summer in Central Oregon. Yah buddy.

Summer is my all time favorite season around Central Oregon. Duh, who doesn't love summer right?! All of my favorite activities are kind of dependent on the weather. Wakeboarding, tanning, naps in the sun, mountain biking, drinking beer in the sun and fishing. I love fishing. Fishing season opened on Saturday and I was stoked. I planned my first ever solo fishing trip. I go fishing by myself all the time but I used to go to a spot that was within walking distance of my house (I caught my very first brown trout at this spot last summer, two in one day actually!) This time I picked a new lake that I had never hear of before and set out at 6:45 am to slay fish. I didn't catch anything. Sigh. But I made friends with an old fisherman and got to watch him reel in a beautiful 26" rainbow. That was pretty cool.

 My first brown trouts (This is before Paleo & constant crossfit,don't judge me ;))

To go along with my excellent summer mood and summer activity I made sun tea and Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad. I love potato salad. It reminds me of Summertime and my mom. She makes a pretty epic potato salad. But sorry mom, my potato salad is better then yours. I threw caution into the wind and used mayo. I know that you can make "paleo mayo" but lets be honest, no one wants to make that shit. Happy summer! I hope you try this awesome salad at a picnic or something cool and summery like that.

 

Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad

Ingredients:

-6 small sweet potatoes, diced
-2.5 chicken breasts seasoned with garlic salt, paprika and black pepper
-1 cup olives, chopped
-6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
-1 cup celery, chopped
-3 TBS olive oil
-Olive oil mayo or Paleo mayo (if you're fancy)
-2 TBS whole grain dijon mustard
-1TSP chipotle chile pepper, ground
-Salt & pepper & garlic salt to taste

Directions

-Grill your chicken breasts
-While the chicken is grilling saute the sweet potatoes in olive oil and add the chipotle pepper ( I did this so that the potatoes could get golden and slightly crispy. I don't like how mushy they get when you boil them.)
-Once your chicken is done grilling, chop it up and throw it in a big bowl
-Add your sweet potatoes, celery, olives and eggs
-Add mayo until it reaches your desired potato salad consistency. (I probably used about two cups)
-Add mustard and continue mixing
-Season with salt & pepper and garlic salt to taste! (I think the garlic salt is the most important ingredient here FYI)

**You could add sweet pickles and onions to this to give it some more flavor even! I didn't have either on hand so I didn't worry about it!