Beef Tangine with Butternut Squash

A picture of this dish came up when I was browsing the CL website and it looked like a perfect winter night meal.
Not only does it look warm and toasty, it has great flavor and this dish has got a kick to it!

Ingredients
2 teaspoons paprika*
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper**
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (1-pound) beef shoulder roast or petite tender roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 shallots, quartered
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cups (1-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 pound)***
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

*I used 1 tsp smoked paprika and 1 tsp regular paprika.
** I did not have crushed red pepper, only red pepper flakes, seemed to work just as well.
*** I only used 2 cups of butternut squash I didn't want to overwhelm the meal with so much squash.

Preparation

Combine first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl. Add beef; toss well to coat.

I let the flavors marinate while I chopped up the shallots and minced the garlic.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add beef and shallots; cook 4 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. (I used a pot since I do not have a dutch oven)

Add garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Stir in broth and tomatoes; bring to a boil.

I could not find pre-cut butternut squash so I just bought a whole squash, peeled and cut it into squares. I let the stew mixture come up to a boil, transferred into a big oven safe pot and added the butternut squash.

I let it cook on 300 for about 1.5 hours.
I bought slow cook meat (I could not find shoulder roast) because I intended to let this stew in the oven for two hours. Unfortunately slow cook meat really means it wants to be cooked in a slow cooker so my meat was still pretty tough! Next time I will know for sure that I need to use the pork shoulder or at least another type of roast.

I really like this recipe. The only changes I would make is I would make it in a crock pot next time and let it cook for 8 hours so that the meat is super super tender.