How to: Make Paleo Ropa Vieja

Here's another crockpot recipe to help make Whole 30, and healthy eating in general, easier throughout the week. This tasty recipe was found and first tried by my sister. The detailed recipe can be found at http://ancestralchef.com/paleo-ropa-vieja-recipe/. It was very easy to put together and to make things easier I will retype up the ingredients and steps, but want ancestralchef.com to get full credit for this recipe! Here's what you'll need.


Materials:

• 2 cutting boards
• 2 sharp knives
• Crockpot
• Large frying pan
• 1/4 measuring cup
• 2 Tablespoons (one for the coconut oil, the other for the rest of the ingredients)
• Garlic press
• Table knife (to get tomato paste out of jars)
• Fork (to flip meat while frying)
• Disposable gloves (to mix ingredients pre-cooking)

Ingredients:

• 3lb flank steak(**I only could find 2 lbs at the store; adjust salt and other spices accordingly, still use the same amount of peppers)
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil (for pan searing)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of sea salt
• 1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 (6oz) cans tomato paste(**The only sugar free sauce I could find was in 7oz jars at Whole Foods)
• 3 peppers, sliced (**I used one red, one orange, one yellow)
• 1 tablespoon onion flakes (or onion powder)
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon cumin powder

Directions:

Heat the coconut oil in the frying pan on high. While it is heating, slice up your peppers into slices.

 Slice up your flank steak into 2-3 inch strips against the grain of the meat.










Place the strips in the coconut oil to sear for 2-3 minutes on each side. 

While the meat is searing, place the peppers and the rest of the ingredients in the crockpot. Add the meat when it is done. It should look like this.

Put on your gloves and mix up all the ingredients. It will look like this when you are done.

Set your crockpot to cook! Note: the recipe calls for this to cook on "low" for 6 hours. My crockpot has settings for 4 hours and 6 hours as "High" and 8 hours and 10 hours as "low" so I set mine for 8 hours. Here's what the finished product looks like right after the lid is lifted. The picture to the right is after I shredded the steak--it virtually fell apart it was so tender.

This stew is divine and will make delicious, easy lunches for most of the week. Enjoy!