Cooking a Good Everything Else

I've been off beef in general for the last couple of years, because the price has just been ridic. But the grocery store has beef necks for $1.69/lb yesterday, so I thought I'd see how they were for birria. OMG, probably the best birria I've ever had. Cooked them low and slow in the crock pot until all the meat fell of the bones and the cartilage gelatinized.

Nothing in there but water, peppers (mostly dried guajillo, some arboles, two ghost, some cracked black pepper, and a fresh yellow bell), garlic, onion, cumin, and some better than bullion beef. Added a shot of espresso balsamic vinegar late. No tomato. Just wasn't feeling that acidic.

So effing good. The bones really added a rich umami, and were easy to deal with as they came out clean. Made it into birria ramen for dinner tonight. Quesadillas with the rest, probably.

^Need some pics of this beef bone birria.

I mean, it's birria. It's not very photogenic. Looks like broth in the pot, and like shredded beef when pulled out of the broth.

made my own guac this year and after realizing how easy it was, moved on to making my own salsa, again, incredibly easy and can easily be done to taste, key for me is doing at least half your tomato content to be canned diced ones rather than fresh chopped and go minimal on onion and bell pepper but heavy on garlic

first time did it with all jalapenos, and put in like 9 and was still very mild

2nd time did a poblano, a habanero, and a jalapeno and was 10x better and spicier