Instant Pot Barbacoa Beef

I recently discovered this recipe on Taste and Tell and have a feeling it will become a favorite not only to have at home, but also to freeze and pack for our RV road trips. I'm slowly adding recipes to my Instant Pot file and this one is not only super easy and delicious, but the meat is incredibly tender and easy to shred with two forks. Very impressive! Tacos anyone?

Instant Pot Barbacoa Beef
(Taste and Tell)

Ingredients

2 pound chuck roast
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, diced (about 1 cup)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 cup beef broth
2-4 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, minced (remove seeds for less heat)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 bay leaves

Cut the roast into 4-6 large chunks, removing any large pieces of fat.

Press Saute on the Instant Pot and add half of the roast chunks. Brown completely on each side. Remove to a plate and brown the second half of the meat. Remove from the Instant Pot.

With the Instant Pot still on Saute, add the onion and cook until it starts to become translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin and oregano and cook an additional minute. Pour in the broth, chipotle chiles, lime juice, cider vinegar, salt, pepper, cloves and bay leaves. Stir to combine, then add the roast back into the Instant Pot.

Place the lid on the Instant Pot and lock. Select High Pressure and 60 minutes.

When the pot beeps, allow the pressure to naturally release. Once the pin has dropped, remove the lid and, using a set of tongs, remove the meat from the Instant Pot to a cutting board. Use 2 forks to shred the beef. Once shredded, return to the Instant Pot and stir to coat the meat in the leftover juices.

The meat will be very wet once you stir it back into the cooking liquid. If you don’t want this, you can skip the last step and just serve it after you have shredded it. I like to use tongs to remove the beef from the liquid, allowing some of the excess broth to drip off. I love the extra flavor and moisture the liquid brings.

Serves six

My Notes:

In an effort to keep this somewhat mild, I skipped the chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. The seasonings were enough to flavor the meat. Delicious!

Shoulder roast is leaner, so there is less fat to trim and the juice isn't greasy.

Perfect for tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, bowls or machaca. This is going to be a great item to cook ahead of time and freeze for our road trips in the RV!

Please visit Beth Fish Reads for Weekend Cooking.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.

Looking Back - Paper Wings

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Paper Wings by Marly Swick
Fiction
1997 Harper Perennial
Finished in March 1998
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Everyone in Suzanne's family acknowledges her mothers instability, yet no one has any idea why she suffers these bouts of depression. They simply accept them as fact and enjoy the moments when she emerges from them, buoyant and energetic. With Kennedy's election, presidency and assassination as background, Suzanne tells the story of the dissolution, and ultimate redemption, of her family. Sure to appeal to readers of Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Hoffman and Mona Simpson, Paper Wings is a subtle and moving novel about a mother and daughter who struggle, hope, and learn from each other how to emerge from shadows of tragedy.

My Original Notes (1998):

Pretty good. At first I thought it was too simplistic, with a lot of trite details, but I got caught up in the story and really enjoyed it. It was fun to read about specific details of Lincoln (Swick teaches at UNL) and I wonder how much, if any, of the material is autobiographical.

My Current Thoughts:

I don't own a copy of this novel and I have no recollection of the characters or plot.

A Rule Against Murder

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4
Mystery
2009 Minotaur Books
Finished on February 4, 2019
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

It is the height of summer, and Armand Gamache and his wife are celebrating their wedding anniversary at an isolated, luxurious inn not far from the village of Three Pines. But they’re not alone. The Finney family—rich, cultured, and respectable—has also arrived for a celebration of their own…

As the heat rises and the humidity closes in, some surprising guests turn up at the Finney reunion…and a terrible summer storm leaves behind a dead body. Now it’s up to Chief Inspector Gamache to unearth long-buried secrets and hatreds hidden behind polite smiles. The chase takes him to Three Pines—into the dark corners of his own life, and finally to a harrowing climax.

Any reader knows it's a great book when you stay up reading until 2:30 am. I'm hooked on this series and so glad I decided to start reading the print editions rather than listening to the audios. I began reading this fourth installment in the Three Pines series immediately after finishing the previous book, The Cruelest Month. In addition to finally getting a handle on the characteristics of and relationships between the main characters, particularly Gamache, Reine-Marie, Beauvoir and Lacoste, I can now also begin to envision their surroundings and the small village of Three Pines. I was born in Ottawa (Ontario) and we later moved to a small town outside of Sherbrooke (Quebec) called Lennoxville, where we lived when I was a toddler. Manoir Bellechasse, which is the main setting in A Rule Against Murder, was inspired by Manoir Hovel in the village of North Hatley, which is southwest of Lennoxville. I would love to take a trip to this area, not only to revisit an area of my childhood, but to also see the beautiful villages and lakes depicted in Louise Penny's mysteries. I know I wouldn't recognize anything about this part of Canada, and I certainly wouldn't be able to speak the language, but it would be fun to see where my family and I once lived.

Louise Penny's charming setting, lovable characters and the intricate puzzle of each newly imagined crime make for an addictive series, but her lyrical prose had me re-reading passages not just once, but two or three times, before moving on.

Within minutes they were on the dock, kicking off their sandals and dropping their towels like nests onto the warm wooden surface. Gamache and Reine-Marie looked onto this world of two suns, two skies, of mountains and forests multiplied. The lake wasn't glass, it was a mirror. A bird gliding across the clear sky appeared on the tranquil water as well. It was a world so perfect it broke into two. Hummingbirds buzzed in the garden and monarch butterflies bobbed from flower to flower. A couple of dragonflies clicked around the dock. Reine-Marie and Gamache were the only people in the world.

and 

The storm moved on, to terrorize other creatures deeper in the forest. And the Gamaches returned to bed, throwing open their windows for the cool breeze the storm had left as an apology.

Penny's books are addictive and binge-worthy and if I weren't already committed to reading my book club selection, I'd dive right into the fifth in this series. Sadly, it will have to wait at least a week, unless of course, I start staying up until 2:30 every night. 

Teriyaki Sirloin Steaks

My husband is your typical meat-and-potatoes guy. Quinoa and kale are not in his vocabulary and while he'll eat salmon and shrimp, it's not his first choice. If he were in charge of the meal planning and cooking, he would eat red meat, if not every day, at least 2-3 times a week. Don't get me wrong. I love meat, too, but in an attempt to serve more healthy meals, I try to limit our consumption of beef to once, maybe twice, a week. We love hamburgers, tacos (with shredded or ground beef), stew, stroganoff, spaghetti & meatballs, meatloaf and, of course, steak. But that steak has to be a good cut, with plenty of marbled fat to help keep it tender. I will occasionally grill a flank steak, but it's not my favorite. Rod and I both love a juicy ribeye, which is a little more flavorful than a tenderloin and just a bit more tender than a New York strip. So when we're at Costco, we stock up on ribeyes. If you've never purchased steaks at Costco, you're missing out. I overheard a shopper complaining about how expensive one package of ribeyes cost (somewhere around $42), but that breaks down to just a little over $10 per steak. I don't know about you, but I've never had a decent steak in a restaurant for that price! But back to this recipe. I'm not sure if I've ever purchased a sirloin steak, but when I saw this recipe in a Weber cookbook, I figured it would be just as good with ribeyes. I was right. My only complaint is that we didn't grill an extra steak. The leftovers would be perfect for lunch in a salad or sandwich. Serve these steaks with a side of risotto shrimp and you've got yourself an elegant meal. Yum!

Teriyaki Sirloin Steaks

(Photo Credit: weber.com)

Ingredients

1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup tamari or reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp. dry sherry
1/4 cup water
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
Garlic salt
4 top sirloin steaks (each 8-10 oz. and about 1 1/2 inches thick)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

In a small saucepan, combine the pineapple juice, tamari/soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 cup water, sherry ginger and garlic salt to taste. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 10-12 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. You should have about 1 cup of sauce. 

*The sauce can be made up to 1 week in advance and refrigerated. 

Set aside (and refrigerate) 1/4 cup of the teriyaki sauce. Place the steaks in a large lock-top plastic bag and pour the remaining sauce into the bag. Seal the bag, squish the sauce around the steaks and refrigerate overnight.

At least 30 minutes before grilling, remove the steaks from the refrigerator. Discard the sauce and pat the steaks dry with paper towels. Season both sides of the steaks with salt & pepper.

Remove the reserved 1/4 cup of teriyaki sauce from the refrigerator and bring to room temperature.

Preheat the grill for direct grilling over high heat. Brush and oil the grill grate.

Place the steaks on the grill directly over the fire and cook for 3 minutes. Turn and cook for another 3 minutes. Turn again and cook for 5 minutes more for medium-rare or until an instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally into the center of a steak registers 135 degrees (F). 

Transfer the steaks to a cutting board and allow them to rest for 5-10 minutes. Slice against the grain, arrange on a platter, and serve at once. Pass the reserved teriyaki sauce at the table.

My Notes:

We used boneless rib-eye steaks, which were delicious and tender. I think any cut of beef would work just fine.

The original recipe doesn't indicate whether to grill with the grill lid open or closed. We always grill with ours closed. Our steaks were perfectly cooked to medium-rare.

This marinade would be delicious with chicken, shrimp or pork. It's super easy to prepare and very flavorful.

Original recipe from Weber

Please visit Beth Fish Reads for Weekend Cooking.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.

A Month in Summary - January 2019

Little Whale Cove

Depoe Bay, Oregon

January 1, 2019

It's been a little while since my last monthly summary. I like keeping track of my activities, whether they include reading, working on puzzles, entertaining guests or traveling, but the last three months of the year were hectic, stressful and filled with great sadness. I do plan to continue with my travel posts from our two-month road trip (mainly for my own future reference), but I'm not so obsessive that I feel the need to go back and post these monthly summaries for the last quarter of 2018. And with that said, January proved to be a very good month, with regard to the quantity of books read. Typically, I read three or four books a month, but I was on a roll this month. And yet, I didn't read very many from my personal shelves. While picking up a couple of library books for my husband, I decided to wander through the stacks and see what might catch my eye. I wound up with quite a few and five of this month's books were borrowed. 

Books Read in January:

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende

And Every Morning, The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes

Ruby by Ann Hood

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (January favorite)

Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini

First Lines:

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. (Anne of Green Gables)

I have lived in Haines, Alaska, all my adult life but there are still times, especially winter evenings when the setting sun washes over the white mountaintops, the sky turns a deep blue, and the water is whipped into whitecaps by the north wind, that I can't believe my good fortune. (If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name)

There's a hospital room at the end of a life where someone, right in the middle of the floor, has pitched a green tent. A person wakes up inside it, breathless and afraid, not knowing where he is. A young man sitting next to him whispers: "Don't be scared." (And Every Morning, the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer)

I remember, in no particular order:
- a shiny inner wrist;
- steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it; 
- gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house; 
- a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
- another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
- bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door;
This last isn't something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed. (The Sense of an Ending)

Olivia had so many things that she wanted to tell the girl who killed her husband that she wasn't even sure where to begin. (Ruby)

Kneeling in the fragrant moist grass of the village green Clara Morrow carefully hid the Easter egg and thought about raising the dead, which she planned to do right after supper. (The Cruelest Month)

My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfather's farmhouse outside of Homs. (Sea Prayer)

Movies & TV Series:

House, MD - We loved this show when it first came aired and have decided to watch it again with my mom, who until now, has never seene it. We are now into Season Four and are hooked. Of course, we're now all dreaming about the terrible diseases we could potentially contract... 

Gifted - Meh. Too sappy.

Cell - I haven't read the book (by Stephen King), but I'm willing to bet it's better than the movie. I do like John Cusak and Samuel L. Jackson, though. Without them, I probably would've turned it off.

Puzzlemania:

We've gotten back to our puzzles and finished a couple from Liberty Puzzles, which are great fun! These wooden puzzles look more challenging than traditionally cut puzzles, but once you get started, they really aren't that difficult.

   

Travel & Visitors:

The RV was in the shop for some miscellaneous repairs, so we didn't do any traveling for pleasure. However, we did drive up to the Seattle area for my father's funeral in the middle of the month. It was an emotional, yet uplifting weekend surrounded by family and friends, just as my dad would have loved.

Saint Mark's Cathedral

Seattle, Washington

And as often in life, there was a joyful event to offset our sadness. Our daughter, Amy (known to some of you as Fashion Jackson), and her boyfriend Will announced their engagement earlier this week. We couldn't be more excited or happier for them!

The Cruelest Month

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #3
Mystery
2007 St. Martin's Minotaur
Finished on January 28, 2019
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat.

It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life. . .

When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil---until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along?

Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate, in a case that will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous than they seem.

Well done! I do believe I am finally hooked on this series. It's been over 12 years since I first read Still Life and looking back at my review, I'm a little surprised I gave it such a high rating. I wrote the following after reading the second book, A Fatal Grace:

I read the first in the series (Still Life), and later listened to that same story on audio to reacquaint myself with the cast of characters before moving forward and reading this book. I decided to continue with the series on audio rather than the print version and while I enjoyed the book, it took me almost three weeks to finish. Unlike the psychological thrillers I enjoy listening to, the books in this cozy series are more serene, and I found my mind wandering as I listened while I worked. At one point, I had to go back and listen to a chapter a second time to sort out some of the details, and I found that if I didn’t listen over the weekend, I had to backtrack once again to refresh my memory.

So that's the key. Print rather than audio. Some mysteries are wonderful on audio, but this series begs to be read and savored. I love the sprinkling of French phrases, most of which (surprisingly!) I can decipher thanks to two years of high school French. I am also up to speed on all the supporting characters, no longer relying on an index card (with names and relationships) I kept tucked inside the book. I can now readily picture each character and the details of the village of Three Pines. 

It took me a full week to read the book, but it never once felt sluggish and I was eager to get back to it at the end of each day, reading far too late in the night.  I was a bit confused by references to an earlier incident in the series, but Penny does a fine job teasing out the backstory without giving too much away. However, I'm tempted to go back and re-read A Fatal Grace, but since I have so many books in this series on which to catch up, I'll just move on to A Rule Against Murder, which is already on my nightstand. 

Ruby

Ruby by Ann Hood
Fiction
1998 Picador
Finished on January 22, 2019
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

After the tragic death of her husband of barely one year, Olivia, a milliner from New York City, must begin rebuilding her life. Ordinarily a vivacious and strong woman, she finds herself unable to surmount her grief...until she meets Ruby.

Young, pregnant and delinquent, Ruby trespasses and enters the seemingly uninhabited Rhode Island beach house in which Olivia and her late husband had planned to build their life together. Abandoned by her family, Ruby has no home and seems far too immature to care for the baby Olivia so strongly desires. With her eye on the adoption of the newborn, Olivia offers the rebellious teen a place to stay.

An unlikely friendship is forged as Olivia nurtures Ruby and her unborn child and experiences the daily challenges presented by a wayward teen, who may or may not teach Olivia how to live again.

It's quite apparent that Ruby is one of Ann Hood's earliest novels and not nearly as polished as her more current books, several of which I've recently read. (Her website doesn't even have Ruby listed in her collection of published books, which is interesting.) I stumbled upon the book while perusing the shelves at my library and decided to give it a try, since I really enjoyed The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle and her nonfiction gem, Morningstar: Growing Up With Books (click on the titles for my full reviews). Unfortunately, Ruby is trite, lacking tension and fully realized characters, and is far too predictable. I didn't sympathize with either of the main characters and grew weary of the far-fetched plot, which became a slog by the halfway mark. I continued reading only because it's a short book and I was curious about the ending. I'm glad this wasn't the first book I read of Hood's or I may not have gone on to try anything else by her.

Wordless Wednesday

Little Whale Cove

Depoe Bay, Oregon

January 28, 2019

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

Gallup, El Morro, & Albuquerque, NM

Friday, September 21, 2018
Gallup to Albuquerque, New Mexico (via El Morro)
Distance: 244 miles
Enchanted Trails RV Park
Duration: 2 nights
Cost: $18.09 per night
Weather: Warm and sunny

We were not at all sad to leave the USA RV Park. There is nothing remarkable about the amenities or surroundings, and the noise from the trains and low-flying planes (directly over the park in the early morning hours) make for a restless night. Needless to say, we were up early!

USA RV Park

Gravel sites with no shade for those parked near the front of the park. Alternating site approaches means your coach door opens toward your neighbor's coach door - and your picnic tables are on the same side. Why?? Looking for the positive, this has to be one of the most level sites we've encountered. I don't think we even used leveling blocks, which may be a first.

We drove through Gallup, but didn't see anything tourist-worthy to stop for, so we continued on down the road, heading south. (Highway 564 south to 602 to 53 east to 122/Route 66 to 279) We took a side trip to El Morro National Monument, where we enjoyed our lunch and took a 1/2-mile walk on the Inscription Trail. It's a nice, easy trail where you can see the ancient markings, as well as inscriptions from the 1800s.

Nice visitor's center with very helpful rangers. 

Didn't see a single snake or, 

for that matter, very many people.

Inscription Trail

The wildflowers were gorgeous!

A fence railing prevented us from getting too close,
 but I was able to zoom in on the markings.

Amazing that people were able to etch their names, 
dates and other information with such beautiful handwriting!

Just a few of the 2,000-plus carvings at El Morro.

After lunch, I hiked to the top of the rocks and did the 2-mile Mesa Top Trail. The view was amazing and with nobody else on the trail, my hike felt even more inspiring. It was almost as if I was the last person on the planet!

Eventually, I would be on the top of those rocks!

I kept a watchful eye out for snakes hiding in the shade!

Can you see the volcano in the distance?

I came across the ruins of the Atsinna, which were occupied by the ancestors of the Zuni people from approximately 1275 to 1400.

Believe it or not, this is the trail!

Created by the Civilian Conservation Corps,

 these steps made for easier climbing.

Approximately 200 feet above the valley floor, 

I can see where our RV is parked beyond the Visitor Center.

In addition to the stairways, the Civilian Conservation
Corps carved trail markings in the sandstone.

It was incredible to walk these paths without the distraction of others around me. Other than an occasional jet far overhead, it was completely silent.

The rock formation on the left reminds 

me of the ancient stone heads of Easter Island.

We enjoyed our stop at El Morro and while it's a little off the beaten path, it's well worth a visit.

It was beginning to get late in the afternoon and time to hit the road to Albuquerque. We drove most of the way on Route 66 until it abruptly disappeared, forcing us to jump back on I-40. I'd rather poke along at my own pace, rather than push the RV to go 60-65 with the semis flying past me at 75, so I was happy we were able to drive some of that distance on the old highway.

Absolutely gorgeous, wide open space.

 I don't think we're in Nevada anymore!

This is why I love road trips!

Route 66 with I-40 just beyond those rock formations.

After stopping for gas in Grants (a sad, depressed-looking town), we made it safe and sound to our next RV park, just west of Albuquerque. Our site was fairly level and there were a few more trees than at our previous location, which helped make it feel a little less stark. 

It was a long day and we arrived

 just in time to see a gorgeous sunset.

Click on images for larger view.

Previous Posts:

Winslow, Arizona and the Petrified Forest National Park

Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon

Flagstaff and Dead Horse Ranch State Park

Discovering Soshone Point (Grand Canyon)

Hiking the Bright Angel Trail (Grand Canyon)

Sunrise and the El Tovar Hotel (Grand Canyon)