Shredded Green Chile Beef

My father, sixty-seven, has hired a contractor to add a master suite onto the main floor of the Orem house — knee surgery, hip surgery, the architecture of aging. Mason, seventeen, has been over there every weekend helping the framers, and last Saturday he came home with sawdust on his sweatshirt and the look of someone who has just figured something out. My father pulled me aside in the kitchen on Sunday and said, in the voice he used to use at Church welfare meetings, 'That boy doesn't need college, Michelle. He needs a tape measure and a crew.' I have been thinking about that sentence ever since.

There is a photograph above my stove. I will mention this many times. It does not get less true. The week was a spring week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan is 20, in Manila on his mission, and his last email mentioned a chicken adobo so good he is going to make me make it when he comes home. Olivia is 19, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason is 16, finishing high school, with calluses on his hands and a plan that does not yet have words. Lily is 14, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 11, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

The recipe of the week was soup base in jars, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. The freezer in the garage is the freezer of record. The freezer in the pantry is the freezer of convenience. The distinction matters. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

I prayed on Thursday morning for the first time in two weeks, which the therapist would call worth noting. I noted it. I am still a Latter-day Saint. I am also a woman who has sat in front of a casket the size of a bread box. I do not see those two things as contradictions, but I do not pretend they sit easily together either. The bench in the chapel where I sit on Sunday is the same bench. The woman is not. The faith makes room for the woman. That is what I have learned to ask of it.

Dinner is in the freezer. Tomorrow is coming. I am ready.

This is the recipe that went into the freezer that Sunday — the one Brandon helped with, the one where the conversation ran long and I did not mind. Shredded green chile beef is exactly the kind of thing I reach for when the week ahead is uncertain and the people I love are hungry in ways I cannot always predict: it bags flat, it thaws fast, and it tastes like I planned ahead, which I did, because that is the whole point. Ethan asked me once what my love language was, and I told him it was labeled freezer bags with the date written in Sharpie.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 8 hrs | Total Time: 8 hrs 15 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 lbs beef chuck roast, trimmed
2 cans (4 oz each) diced green chiles, undrained
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup low-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Sear the beef. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chuck roast on all sides with salt and pepper. Sear for 3—4 minutes per side until a deep brown crust forms. Transfer to a slow cooker.
Build the sauce. In the slow cooker, add the diced green chiles, diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, and oregano. Pour the beef broth over everything.
Slow cook. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 4—5 hours, until the beef is completely tender and falls apart easily with a fork.
Shred. Remove the roast and shred with two forks on a cutting board. Return shredded beef to the slow cooker and stir to coat in the juices. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Freeze (if prepping ahead). Divide into gallon freezer bags in 2-cup portions. Lay flat to freeze. Label with name, date, and reheating instructions. Freezes well for up to 3 months.
Serve. Serve over rice, in warm flour tortillas, over baked potatoes, or alongside roasted vegetables. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat in a saucepan over medium-low heat until warmed through.

Nutrition (per serving)

Shredded Green Chile Beef — The Freezer That’s Always Ready