Shredded Beef | Dolly Domestic

Well, talk about a let down for the last day. No shopping. No eating out. We had great, big sandwiches (with the slice ham and rolls from Sam’s yesterday) for dinner. Everyone was sort of doing his or her own thing so dinner was a non-event today. Andy and I ate together, my other son was hanging out with friends. Mike ate later (finishing off the last of the shredded beef). Normally we all eat at the table together — every night. Always have. I know my boys don’t realize it yet, but it’s a tradition they’ll likely miss at some point in their lives.

While I didn’t put much effort into the meal, I did manage to use up a bunch of cream cheese and eggs and made a cheesecake. Big sucker, too! With a nice fresh strawberry topping. I had to do something with those strawberries I splurged on before they went to waste. Plus, I made use of 2 pounds of cream cheese (I still have three 8-oz. packages).

No shopping today. Dinner was tamales (made from scratch several months ago and vacuum-sealed) served with a faux Spanish rice, salsa and enchilada sauce (also pre-made from scratch and frozen in silicon muffin pans then vacuum-sealed). The boys were so hungry that we ate all the tamales before my husband even came in from working on the workshop. He had a burrito with more of the shredded beef we’d had the other day and a homemade tortilla.

Here’s my enchilada sauce recipe:

Enchilada Sauce

2 tbsp Oil
2 tbsp Flour
1/4 cup red chile powder — mild
2 cups beef broth — fresh or canned
2 cups tomato puree — canned
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/4 tsp Cumin — powdered
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Salt

Heat oil in large saucepan. Add the flour to the oil and make a roux. Stir and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes until it becomes brown in color. Add the chile powder, beef broth, tomato puree, oregano, cumin, garlic and salt to the roux and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Notes: I’ve substituted tomato sauce for the puree and nobody noticed. Chile powder and chili powder are NOT the same thing. Chile powder is actually powdered chilis, and chili powder is a mixture of seasonings to make chili and usual includes chile powder, salt, garlic, etc.

I frequently make a double batch of this sauce, since I’m going to freeze most of it anyway. I have 3 silicon muffin “pans” that I freeze this and other sauces in. Because the silicon is so flexible the sauce pops right out; each piece being about 1/3-1/2 cup. My experience is sauce quantities are somewhat forgiving, so I’m not worried too much about being exact.