Quick, Easy Dinner for Pre-Christmas Week

What with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call, I know you're busy. Me too.  So I thought that a quick and easy Crock Pot dinner might be helpful.  This is mostly from the Food Network cookbook Making It Easy. It said to use brisket, but I used a  3 lb. boneless chuck steak and it worked just fine (plus I'm never quite sure what a brisket actually is...).  This took about 20 minutes to get into the Crock Pot, and then it cooked all day.  So there I was wrapping (not rapping--that would be a different sort of day), listening to Andy Williams croon that It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, basically getting lots of stuff done, and all the while, dinner simmered away, smelling delicious.

Southwestern Pulled Beef Sandwiches  serves 6

3 lbs. beef brisket (boneless chuck steak just fine)

Salt and pepper

2 Tbl. vegetable oil

5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 yellow onion, halved and sliced thinly

1 Tbl. chili powder

2 tsp. ground coriander

2 tsp. cumin

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

3 Tbl. molasses

1 14 oz. can whole or chopped tomatoes, with their juices

2 whole canned chipotle chilies in adobo sauce

soft sandwich rolls

Season the beef generously with salt and pepper to taste. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat.  Add the oil and heat until almost smoking.  Add the meat and cook, turning once, until browned on both sides, about 10 minutes total.  Place meat in slow cooker.  Lower heat, and to the same skillet add garlic, onion, chili powder, coriander, and cumin to the drippings and heat until fragrant, about a minute. Add vinegar and boil until almost gone, scraping bottom of pan with wooden spoon.  Stir in the water and molasses and pour the mixture over the meat.  Crush the tomatoes, whether whole or chopped, through your fingers into the slow cooker.  Add the chipotles and the juice from the tomatoes.  Cover the cooker, cook on LOW for 8 hours (or, alternatively, you could cook on HIGH for one hour, then on LOW for 5-6 hours, which is what I did--however the timing works for you).  To serve, leave the meat in the slow cooker and use two forks to pull it apart into shreds.  Stir the meat evenly into the sauce, taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed.  Pile saucy meat onto sandwich buns and serve (quite delicious to first spread the cut side of the buns with butter, sprinkle with a little garlic powder, and broil til lightly toasted, then fill with the meat).  Muy tasty. Now off you go, go finish your wrapping (not rapping).