I love parties, I love to cook, I love to make cakes, and I love to entertain, so when one of our friends had a birthday recently, it only felt right to throw a party for her! I knew right away that I wanted to make some kind of Western foods. Something new and different for the birthday girl. Thinking about how much she likes spicy food, Mexican food came to mind. I’ve been absolutely CRAVING Chipotle recently, so I’m not surprised that’s where my mind went. 🙂
With Chipotle on the brain, I came up with party menu plan. Being a little nervous about how my guests react to Mexican food, I thought a buffet style meal would be a safe way to go. That way everyone could take as little or as much of each food as they wanted, and everyone could build their own burrito bowls. I am happy to say the party was a success and the guests devoured the food!
For the bowls I made cilantro-lime rice, black beans, barbacoa beef, and pico de gallo. And because no bowl would be complete without it, I also had freshly grated cheddar cheese and sour cream.
Keep an eye out because next week I’ll be sharing the cake that I made for the party! It’s a pretty one!
Barbacoa BeefÂ
Ingredients
3 lbs beef eye of round or bottom round roast, most of the fat trimmed*
5 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion, cut into chunks
1/2 lime, juice
2-4 chipotles in adobo sauce**
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground oregano
1/2 tsp ground cloves
salt and pepper
3 bay leaves
1 Tbsp oil
1 cup water
*Skinny Taste called for removing all of the fat, but what’s the fun in that? 😉 I left a little of the fat and I think it helped to maintain the moisture in the beef and make it tastier.Â
**Use less for less heat/spice and more for more heat/spice. I used 3 and probably could have handled the heat of 4.Â
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Directions
Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Add, garlic, onion, lime juice, chipotles, cumin, oregano, and cloves to the bowl of a food processor or blender. Process until liquified.
Heat oil in a dutch oven over high-heat. Cut beef into 4 large chunks and season with salt and pepper. Add the chunks to the dutch oven and brown each side. Add the liquified seasonings, bay leaves, and water. Put a lid on the dutch oven and cook in the oven for 4-5 hours, or until the meat easily shreds.
Discard the bay leaf and shred the beef in the dutch oven. Taste and add additional seasoning if necessary. Place the dutch oven over medium heat and cook at a low simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve with cilantro-lime rice, black beans, pico de gallo, cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips and lime wedges.
Slightly adapted from Skinny Taste
Oh my gosh. This looks so good!!! What a great idea for any party!
This sounds and looks amazing – cannot wait to make this for lunches – great idea for a party too!Yum-o.
Nice dish and congratulations on making the foodbuzz Top 9!
This is my favorite thing to order at Chipotle and can't wait to give this recipe a try at home! I may even attempt to do this in the crockpot :).
PS: Congratulations on making FoodBuzz Top 9!
You can mail one of those bowl right on over to me! 😉
YUMM I have been looking for a good little barbacoa recipe, looks like I just found it! Love the chipotle addition.
It’s easy to see why your shredded beef tacos are popluar with your readers.I’m not a big lover of spicy so these are perfect for me!P.S. I hope your love of spicy food comes back after the baby arrives 🙂