Ingredients:

• ½ medium onion
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 4 garlic cloves
• 6 guajillos
• 2 dry chipotle peppers
• 1 ancho/pasilla
• 4 lbs chuck roast
• Beef bones (for a more flavorful broth-optional)
• 3 cups of water
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar
• 8 peppercorns
• Salt to taste
• 1 bay leaf

Directions:

1. On a comal, roast the tomatoes (whole), chiles, garlic, and onion. Be careful not to burn your chiles. They should only take about 3-4 minutes on each side. Tomatoes are done when they start to peel on their own.
2. Remove the stems from the chiles and soak in 3 cups of hot water until soft. In a blender, blend the chiles (and the water you used to soften them), garlic, onion, peppercorns, and salt. Strain the sauce into a bowl with a sifter. Rinse out the blender with the apple cider vinegar and add to sauce.
3. Cut the chuck roast into large 3-inch chunks. Season the meat with salt and pepper. In a dutch oven or large pot that you plan to cook your meat in, sear all sides of each chunk of meat. Once all the meat is seared, add the sauce and bay leaf. The sauce should cover all of the meat. Do not add more water. This is also when to add the beef bones.
4.  Cover and let cook on medium low heat for 1.5 – 2 hours or until meat is fork tender. You can also use a slow cooker after searing the meat instead of doing it stove top.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.