Food: pulled beef and spicy avocado lettuce wraps

I love a recipe post, so after getting a good reception to my recent dinner on Instagram, I thought I'd share with my simple to make low carb pulled beef and spicy avocado lettuce wraps. 

I'm by no means a chef (far from it in fact!) so usually avoid the kitchen at all costs, but since going on a bit of a health kick I've been inspired to make some new recipes that even a novice like me can make. This one is super simple - you just need to allow plenty of time for the beef to cook. 

To make the pulled beef:

- Grab a generously sized joint of beef. I used about 1kg of brisket as it's cheap and perfect to slow cook.

- Because I'm impatient, I cut my joint into two slightly smaller pieces prior to cooking to help speed up the process a little. This is completely optional, but you'll get your beef a bit quicker.

- While the oven is heating up (set it to 170C), brown the beef on all sides in a hot frying pan with a little bit of oil (this helps seal it and keep it moist while it's cooking)

- Once browned, pop the beef into a large casserole dish and cover with beef stock. I used about 1 litre.

- Add a chopped onion to the pot, a couple of cloves of garlic and a bit of chilli powder - this infuses the stock and helps add a little more flavour to the beef

- Pop the lid on the casserole dish and then chuck in the oven for about 3-4 hours (depending on the size of the joint of beef)

- Once the beef is finished, remove it from the cooking liquid and place on a plate. Using two forks, shred the beef up into yummy bite-sized pieces. If the beef doesn't shred easily, you may need to cook it a bit longer - it should break apart pretty easily with just the forks. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking liquid to the beef to moisten it up slightly (freeze the rest as a future stock).

- Layer up your shredded beef on some lettuce leaves (or tortillas if you're not cutting carbs) along with some chopped tomatoes, cucumber and other salad of your choice, before topping with some spicy avocado. I also added some jerk bbq sauce which I found in the supermarket at the weekend. Not truly low-carb but damn it was tasty.

- Hide the rest of your beef from your boyfriend who will try to eat it all and give himself the meat sweats (obviously optional, but this is what happened to me!). 

Spicy avocado:

This is a super simple mix of mushed avocado, lime juice and as much chilli as you like. I've used cayenne powder purely as that's what I had in the cupboard, but a chopped up fresh chilli would be much better. I tend to use half a lime per avocado, but again it's all down to personal taste. Yum. 

I also took a lunchbox of leftovers to work the next day, but instead of piling everything on top of the lettuce as wraps, I shredded the lettuce and had it as more of a traditional salad. 

I hope you enjoyed this recipe - let me know if you try it at home, I'd love to know what you think!