Slow Cooker Sunday: A Spicy Beef Recipe that Needs to Exist on The Internet

This is what it looks like outdoors in Evanston right now.

My mom said this looked like Divergent, which made me super proud of her pop cultural awareness.

They are calling for -50 degree windchill tomorrow, UChicago has already announced that "non-essential staff" (hey, that's me!) need not bother coming in to work, the Packers and 49ers are playing at Lambeau Rink, and I have about seventy-five things to do for an event next week that I would like to avoid doing at all costs. If there was ever a day that called for crock-potting, this is it.

I've been trying to get my hands on this spicy beef recipe since I first had it at my BFF-in-law's parents house about two years ago. I cannot remember the occasion that I was there for, but I have the tendency of showing up at people's parents house for family gatherings... sort of a lot. I like to think that it's because of my excessive parent-specific charm, but I suspect that it is primarily because I am 100% on board with inviting myself to things at which I probably do not belong.

Anyway. I was there. Stuffing my face inappropriately with this spicy beef concoction on tortillas and RAVING about the experience (Parent-Specific Charm 101: Be inordinately impressed with fairly basic but well-loved family recipes.) BFF-in-law's mother (are the relationships getting complicated yet? I'm not going to clarify further) was pleased with my enthusiasm and trying to explain the recipe's simplicity to me so I could recreate. This was pre-me owning a crockpot and also WELL before I even began to conquer my fear of cooking meat independently, so while I could theoretically understand that yes, this was a very basic recipe for something so out-of-this-world amazing to taste, it seemed really out of my culinary reach. Also, I have a terrible memory and pretty shitty auditory processing, so obviously, I did not remember how she told me to make it.

Enter me harassing my BFF to get the recipe from her mother-in-law for me for like four months. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus here and I do understand how in-law politics can make such things somewhat more difficult, but like, mission: not successful. My BFF, who is spectacularly better at cooking than I am, gave me the basics of this (yes, I will say it again) VERY basic recipe, which essentially boiled down to: beef, garlic, peppers, cumin. To an actual cook, that's enough to make a solid start. To me, there were far too many unconfirmed, potentially disastrous, variables. WHAT KIND OF BEEF. HOW MUCH BEEF. BEEF? I AM SCARED OF BEEF. Mostly that.

Fast forward 18 months and because I have nothing better to do with my time, I am still preoccupied with getting this recipe, but woefully incapable of using basic resources (hi, The Internet) to suss it together on my own and fairly certain (completely positive) my BFF is sick of me asking about it. WELL. Guess who WASN'T sick of me asking about it? That's right, BFF-in-law, whose very mother was the source of the recipe in the first place. One excessively long plea from me, minor eyerolls from BFF, and a short forwarded text message from his mom later and here we have it.

Never change, Autocorrect.

After deducing that "racist" was Apple's hilarious interpretation of "roast", and calming my anxiety over HOW MUCH garlic powder if you punted with the substitution (obvi), I had my very own spicy beef recipe, stored right on my phone, just waiting for a day that the healing properties of cumin (right?) could preemptively combat the cold my body is threatening to unleash the day before this big event next week.

So, here it is. The EASIEST most DELICIOUS thing you will ever make, right after avocado toast. Don't even get me started on avocado toast. It should be sainted.

Ingredient Family Portrait, starring That Beef, which is a total ham. Pardon my mixed meat metaphors.

Yes, I still had to have a psychological intervention hosted by the butcher and butcher's assistant (?) at Jewel before actually getting the right cut of meat. But, even just having this giant slab of beef in my kitchen getting put to immediate use is a really big moment in my life. Let's proceed to the actual recipe, because having now read approximately 100,000 words preamble, I think you will be pleasantly surprised how short and sweet we can make these instructions.

1. Put the beef (3-5 lbs chuck roast, or if you're me, single, and/or broke, 2lbs which is honestly, hi, more than enough) in your crockpot, which maybe at this point in your life, you have named (Bettina) because you don't have a pet and you kill plants.
2. Sprinkle (2tsp?) with garlic powder (YOU could be ambitious and go for fresh garlic, but I don't enjoy how it makes my fingers smell for like seventeen days, and honestly, it's just a pain. Also, I'm not gaga for garlic like everyone and their mother. Sorry, Mom.)
3. Dump half the peppers onto the meat. Did I mention the peppers? You need one "large jar" (choose your own adventure) of pepperoncinis. Some juice will be coming out too. Cool. That's what's supposed to happen. Thanks, pepper juice.

One half the dump.

4. Put the cumin (2 tbsp, or like, whatever) in the pepper jar with the remaining peppers and juice and shake it up. Hope you put the top back on before you shook, goofball.
(I totally made this step up because otherwise, this recipe was actually TOO easy and not occupying nearly enough time to justify how much I was procrastinating on returning angry alumni emails.) (Also, it seemed like a totally fun chef-y sort of thing to do.) (Whatever. You don't have to do it.)
5. Dump the remaining peppers and pepper-cumin juice atop the meat.

The other half the dump. If this was a Highlights magazine, could you even tell the difference?

6. Put the crockpot lid on.
7. Plug in the crockpot. (I'm stalling now, this is seriously the easiest recipe ever.)
8. Dial that puppy to low and set your alarm for 7-8 hours, or if you're busier, hungrier, and/or more important than I am, crank it up to high and set for 5-6 hours. If you're feeling like you want to make this beef experience super thematic, maybe you use the Marimba setting for your alarm, so that when it rings, you know you're in for a real spicy treat.
9. Seven hours, sixty-two emails, ninety-eight edited program pages, one toilet scrubbing (procrastinating), two loads of laundry, and one deep conditioning treatment later: Voila! Spicy Beef!
10. Fork that goodness apart, sneak some pre-bites while you do, and Tupperware it up for your dorktastic lunch (and jesus, probably dinner, this week is going to be terrible) all week long. I didn't take a picture of this part, but it looks like shredded beef in Tupperware. Use your imagination.

I'm pairing mine with these fun whole wheat/corn mix tortillas I found, restaurant-style salsa that I did NOT make, and cilantro coleslaw that I sort of did make if you consider combining coleslaw mix and cilantro dressing "making" something. It also seems like it could be super fun to serve with eggs for an awesome breakfast burrito. Or tacos. Whatever. You do what you want with yours. We all win.

On it's own, this meat is not so photogenic, but pop anything on a red plate and I'll want to eat it.