Taco Tuesday!

Here's a GREAT recipe for Taco Tuesday!

My family LOVES Mexican food and "Taco Tuesday" is pretty much a weekly event at our house.  So I thought I would share this recipe I tried from Pinterest back in December and I'm making again TONIGHT. (with a little variation, details below)

Here's the picture and link to the original poster:

Crock Pot Beef Carnitas Tacos

Here's the recipe according to the original recipe:

Ingredients:

2 lbs flank steak

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped

for spice rub—

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

for serving—

corn tortillas

avocado slices

cilantro

your favorite salsa

limes

Directions:

Mix together all spices in a small bowl. Rub the spices all over your flank steak—be generous here! Then, place your steak at the bottom of your crock pot.

Cover the steak with the chopped onions, bell peppers and jalapeno pepper. Turn heat on LOW and cook for 8 hours.

After 8 hours, remove meat from crock pot and shred with a fork. It should be incredibly easy to shred. You can either stick the shredded meat back in the pot for another hour or serve as is.

To serve, heat your corn tortillas in a skillet on the stove. Spoon some carnitas on a tortilla then top with salsa, avocado, cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Enjoy with a margarita for best result.

Here's my take on it and what I plan to do tonight...

As far as the recipe goes, I followed it pretty closely but I didn't use the red pepper just because we are not big fans of bell peppers.  But I did use everything else and it turned out AMAZING!  We all LOVED these tacos and I loved how easy they were.  Just prepare the beef in the morning and stick it in the crock pot and you are good for dinner.  We were in a hurry that night b/c of a School Christmas Program and it was the perfect thing to eat quickly.  I almost wished we had time to savor and enjoy it a bit though. :)

Now tonight I wanted to make this again, but I didn't get to the grocery store until noon.  You need 8 hours to cook the beef...  So I did buy the flank steak, (and I'll freeze it for another time) but I also bought already prepared and shredded beef:

This was easy to find, even at my Henry's which is a "health food" grocery store.  So since I didn't have the 8 hours needed today, I plan to put this plain shredded beaf in my crock pot and add the seasonings, the onions and jalapeño and cook it for about 2-3 hours instead!  I think this will work out and I'll put a note on here after I make it tonight and let you know how it tasted and what was a good cooking time for the already cooked meat.  I'm sure the original way is much better and I would suggest doing it that way if you have the time, but I'm excited to see how this QUICK version will turn out too!

My overall review is:

Preperation:  EASY 

Directions:  TRUE TO WORD and I like to change things up and they still tasted great (imho)

Presentation:  YUMMY.  I mean doesn't that picture at the top make you want to eat this right now!?
Would I make it again:  YES, and I'm excited to try this tonight with my quicker version.  But I do plan on making it again with the original recipe too.

Enjoy!

UPDATE:  The family liked the easy version just as much!  It was moist and flavorful and took a LOT less time.  But tonight I'm going back to the original version so I'll see what they think again.  This is SO easy and I Love having something in the crockpot all day and when dinner comes around, it's pretty much ready!  No fussing in the kitchen while homework is being done.  LOVE it.