CHILE COLORADO BURRITOS

Shredded beef burritos smothered in meaty sauce and cheese.  That's all you need to know before you make this meal.  Oh, and the meat is cooked to tender perfection in a crockpot all day long.  If you aren't sold, I feel sad for you.

Now, this recipe adventure could be filed under failure AND disaster.  There are tons of recipes out there for homemade enchilada sauce, so I decided to give it a shot.  It was awful.  Not sure if it was that particular recipe, or I just love the canned stuff too much.  Anyone out there have a fabulous, homemade version to share with me?

Onto plan B.  Luckily, there are always several cans of enchilada sauce in our pantry, so this meal wasn't ruined.  It was the opposite.  This was amazing.  Please make this meal ASAP.   This made 8 burritos, but if you don't want leftovers or aren't feeding a crowd, just halve the recipe.

Quickly give the stew meat a quick browning in the skillet, then throw it in the crockpot.

Pour in enchilada sauce, chopped green chiles, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, bay leaves and salt.  Cook on low allllllllll day long.

Usually, flour tortillas get a weird, sticky and gummy texture when they get super saucy.  Luckily, Trader Joe's Trader Jose's exists.  My friend Kat served these amazing tortillas with tacos and I was instantly converted.  They keep their texture when smothered with sauce and taste like they're from a restaurant.  Do yourself a favor and get some.

You can stick with an all meat filling, or throw some beans in there as well.  These chorizo refried beans are deliciously flavorful and have a slight kick.  Found them at World Market.

The first night we had this meal, we did beans and meat.  The burritos were super filling and one was enough for a meal.  Spread on beans, top with drained beef.

Oh, hey feet.

OR fill with meat and cheese, like we did with the leftovers.

Roll them up burrito style, smother with sauce and cheese, then stick under the broiler for a few minutes.

Serve these with rice and beans or a side salad with sour cream and guacamole.

With white rice and chorizo refried beans.

With Uncle Ben's chicken rice and refried black beans.

Ingredients

3 lbs lean stew meat
3 cans enchilada sauce, 10 oz each
1 can chopped green chiles, 4.5 oz
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cumin
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon coarse Kosher salt

shredded cheese
refried beans
rice

Brown meat in skillet until browned on all or most sides.  Do not cook the meat all the way through.  Place in crockpot, and top with enchilada sauce, chiles and spices.  Stir, cover and cook on low about 4-5 hours.  Meat is done when it is falling apart.  Remove bay leaves.  You want your sauce to be almost gravy-thick at this point, but the meat juice has probably watered it down.  If your sauce is too thin to use as a topping, mix together 3 teaspoons of cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of water in a tiny bowl, then stir into crockpot.  It'll thicken up quickly.  Taste your sauce, add more spices or salt if necessary.

Assembling burritos:  scoop meat from crockpot using a mesh strainer, so the burritos will be meaty, not runny.  Fill each burrito with half a cup of meat (or beans and meat, or meat and cheese, or all three!) slightly fold in both sides, then roll up.  Place on baking sheet or baking dish, then smother with meat sauce.  Sprinkle with shredded cheese.  Place under broiler set on high for about 3 minutes, watching carefully the entire time until cheese is melted.  Serve with beans, rice, or additional sauce.