Question about the Mustard and Black Pepper Brisket Recipe

Jim from Cool Stuff for Dads asks:

This looks very good. In terms of the potatoes and/or vegetables, could they be cooked as well in the crockpot?

The booklet that came with my my crockpot says to place your veggies on the bottom of the crock and put the meat on top to make sure the vegetables cook through.

I personally never do this when I make beef brisket in the crockpot, because I usually buy the whole untrimmed brisket and don't trim the fat before cooking. I do cut the raw brisket up into more manageable 2-4 pound portions before freezing. Because of this, I have a nice big pool of fat when I finish and any veggies would be little fat bombs!

I did break with tradition this time and bought a partially trimmed brisket, but I still had plenty of fat at the bottom of the crock.

I know they sell a super trimmed version but I have never bought one so I don't know anything about cooking those. Anybody ever cooked one of those ( or a heavily trimmed packer cut one) in a crockpot with veggies on the bottom? Were you happy with the results. I've always been afraid it would be too dry.

Mustard and Black Pepper Brisket

I was trying to figure out a new recipe for brisket cooked in the crockpot earlier this week.

I pulled some brisket out of the freezer and let it defrost overnight. Then I brushed it on both sides with some brown mustard, and mixed some kosher salt and cracked black pepper together and patted that mixture over the mustard.




Then I placed it in the crockpot and cooked it on high for four hours. I would have done it on low, but I didn't get it in the crockpot early enough.



Results:

I used too much salt, but the brisket was moist and the mustard and pepper flavor was very nice. I scraped off the remaining salt, pepper and mustard mixture, and that did help with the saltiness. I will try this again and cut back on the salt by about 50%.

Spaghetti, Salad, Bread and Brownies

Yesterday, I made spaghetti and served it with some French bread, salad with a Balsamic vinaigrette, (not vinegar-ette, Sandy!) and some brownies for dessert. After seeing Anne Burrell make Bolognese sauce on her show, I decided to alter my usual recipe and try some of her suggestions.

Earlier, I had taken half a pound of smoked sausage out of the freezer and let it thaw in the refrigerator. (I had chopped it up before I put it INto the freezer.)



Here I am browning the sausage a bit. Then I scooped out the sausage, and placed it in the bottom of my crockpot while the chopped garlic had a quick turn in the skillet before joining up with the sausage. Then, I added 18 ounces of tomato paste to the skillet, and cooked that for a bit.


Once, the paste had a brownish-red color to it, I added 2 cups of red wine and 1 cup of water. I stirred that in and let it cook until the wine/water mixture had reduced by about half.



Then, I added poured this INto my crockpot on top of the sausage and garlic from earlier, and added three cups of water, some salt, pepper, a couple of bay leaves, and some dried Italian herbs. Yes, I do have basil growing in the Areogarden but, but Mr. Hairball has asked me to leave the basil alone for the time being. It seems I plucked off more than I should have a few days ago to make some basil-garlic vinaigrette. *sheepish grin*

I set my crockpot on high, and I left the lid ajar by about an inch so that the water could slowly cook off. I periodically added a cup of water and let it cook back down throughout the day. I fished out the bay leaves and adjusted the seasonings a bit before serving.



After I got the sauce in the crockpot, I made some French bread dough in my bread machine. After the bread machine finished its dough cycle, I shaped the loaves, left them to do their second rise, and baked them in the oven.



Mr. Hairball loves to eat crusty bread with just a small dish of olive oil for dipping. I forgot to take a picture of his bread plate so you could see the cut bread, so here's what it looked like on my plate of spaghetti. This bread would also make wonderful garlic bread!





I decided I wanted a Balsamic vinaigrette for the salad, so I mixed this up. The picture is at angle as I was trying to not have the cabinets reflected on the surface of the dressing.



It's just Balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, garlic, olive oil, and brown mustard. I used a 3 to 1 ratio of olive oil to vinegar, a tablespoon sized blob of mustard, four cloves of peeled garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. I buzzed in up in my mini-food processor till the garlic was pretty finely chopped.


This is Mr. Hairball's salad. He prefers mozzarella cheese on his salad unless it's a Caesar salad.

A few days ago, I made some brownies. Mr. Hairball ate them all and asked me to make another batch. So I made a double batch which will hopefully last until this weekend. This picture is of the first batch.



I based this recipe on one from Domino Sugar.

This is for a single batch for an 8x8 pan. It doubles nicely. Use a 9x13 pan if you make a double batch.

Brown Sugar Brownies

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 Tablespoons softened butter
2 eggs
6 Tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa (Hershey's Special Dark works well in these)
1/2 tablespoon (1.5 teaspoons) instant coffee
1/2 cup AP flour
1 cup whole walnuts or pecan halves

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 8x8x2-inch baking pan. In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in cocoa, instant coffee, and flour. Spread batter in prepared pan. Sprinkle nuts over the top evenly. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool in pan and cut into bars.

Pizza, breadsticks, and pot roast

Some more recent recipes.

Pizza and breadsticks- I used Judy's recipe from Judy's Kitchen this time. Judy is going to be competing in a recipe contest this weekend so keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she makes her way to Branson, MO.

Earlier, I did some posts about whether garlic will inhibit the yeast action when added to pizza dough, here and here. I did add four cloves of minced garlic, and substituted 1/2 cup of semolina and a 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the bread flour. I saw in the comment section of her blog that someone had suggested replacing 1/2 cup of the bread flour with semolina flour.



As you can see from this photo taken of the dough after the second rise, I got an excellent rise with the addition of the garlic.

I used half the dough to make a pizza the other half I made breadsticks out of using the method that Rosie Hawthorne had suggested in one of her posts on homemade pizza



I topped the pizza with pepperoni and some breakfast sausage that I browned up earlier and packaged for the freezer. I want to try this again without the whole wheat flour and see how that comes out. Mr. Hairball liked this a lot.

Cola-Braised Pot Roast- The recipe calls for fresh rosemary but, I didn't have that so I substituted some fresh basil from our aerogarden.



I keep forgetting to talk about the aerogarden. We currently have nothing but basil growing as Mr. Hairball is looking forward to fresh pesto and emjoys adding fresh basil leaves to his salads.

Then I peeled a head of garlic and put the cloves, the basil, salt, and some olive oil in my mini chopper and buzzed it up until the garlic was finely minced and inserted this mixture INto the slits in the roasts. I used two smaller roasts because it's just the two of us and that way I have another roast for another day. After the second roast was cooked, and had cooled for an hour, I packaged it up and put it INto the freezer.


Garlic basil mixture stuffed INTo the slits. It's hard to not get the mixture on the surface while doing the stuffing.

The recipe calls for a dutch oven which I don't have so I used my cast iron skillet for browning the meat and making the gravy and cooked the roasts in the oven in a 9x13 Pyrex dish.


Browning the roasts before they go INto the oven


Making the gravy

If you are a diehard foodie you probably shouldn't read this next bit.



*spoiler space*





Last time I made mashed potatoes I based them on Anne Burrell's recipe. I had some leftover from that meal, so I froze them for another day. Now, when you defrost mashed potatoes they are going to be a bit watery so, I mixed in some instant potato flakes to thicken them back up. Instant potato flakes are a good thickener for stuff like that so I like to keep some on hand.

About to mix in the instant potatoes...



Mr. Hairball really liked this and talked about it for days. He even said he liked it better than his Grandmother's pot roast which is very high praise as she is an excellent cook.

Beans and Cornbread, Y'all!!

I grew up eating pinto beans and cornbread. It's a cheap way to feed a whole crowd of people and it's just plain good! My Grandmother on my Father's side of the family was not very interested in cooking and because of this, she was not the best cook. One of the few meals she excelled at was beans and cornbread. Now, she always used salt pork in her beans, but today we will be using some smoked sausage.


First up, we will measure out three cups of dried pinto beans and put them in a colander. Give them a good wash and discard any cracked, broken, or shriveled looking beans and debris.




Next, put your beans, chopped garlic, chopped up smoked sausage, salt, and pepper into your crockpot or slow cooker. If you look closely, you'll see that my sausage is still frozen. When I buy smoked sausage, I divide most of it up into 1/2 lb portions, chop it up, and freeze it for later use. Next, pour in your water so that it is about 1 1/2 to two inches above the surface of the beans. Cover them and set on low and cook all day (8-10 hours or so) until soft. When they are ready, it's time to make some cornbread.

Cornbread
This was originally from a bag of Aunt Jemima Yellow Cornmeal but, it seems that the folks at Aunt Jemima no longer make the plain cornmeal, just the cornbread mix. *grumbles*
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, oil or drippings
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
2 Tbs. sugar, (optional)
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt, (optional)
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 425°F. Place vegetable shortening in 10 inch ovenproof skillet, or 8 inch square baking pan. Heat in oven 3 minutes, tilting skillet to coat bottom evenly. Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients. Stir milk and egg until blended. Stir in melted shortening and mix thoroughly.


Pour batter into hot skillet.


Bake 20-25 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.




Homemade cornbread never lasts long with Mr. Hairball around. *grins*

Another Semi-Ho Enchilada Recipe...

A while back, I made some beans and threw in some leftover brisket and we ate it with homemade corn tortillas. There was some of the bean and brisket mixture leftover, so I froze the leftovers for another day. Recently, I pulled some of this out of the freezer, let it defrost, and made up some enchiladas. I know some people prefer to make a new dinner every night but, I like to make larger quantities of some things with the intention of freezing some for another day or purpose.



Preheat your oven to 350F and round up a 9x13 baking dish. Open up your can of enchilada sauce (28 oz) and pour some in the bottom of your baking dish. Open up your package of tortillas and put 12-15 on a plate. It would be best to heat them up to make it easier to roll. (I didn't because I was feeling lazy and they were going to be covered up with sauce and cheese anyway. LOL) Cover and heat them in the microwave or wrap them up in foil and heat in the oven till warm. Dish out about three tablespoons of the brisket/ bean mixture down the middle of a tortilla and roll it up and place in the bottom of your baking dish. If the tortilla tears just do your best to roll it up. Nobody will know after it is baked!
Repeat with your remaining tortillas until the dish is filled. Then pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top.

Next, sprinkle as much cheese as desired on top.



Then, bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until everything is hot and the cheese is melted. Yes, that is a blend of Cheddar and Monterey Jack that was in that bag at the top. *hangs head in shame*





Sorry about this one. I wasn't thinking and dished these out with a spoon so it's not that pretty. They were very good! Mr. Hairball likes lots of light sour cream on top of his enchiladas. *grins*

Some light housekeeping...

I've posted some pictures and updated two old posts of mine.
Country Butter
Mama's Tacos and Tortilla Chips.

Dinner from Wednesday

On Monday, I made some beef brisket with a spicy dry rub, and served it with some garlic mashed potatoes . I know that may sound like an odd combination but, I was craving meat and potatoes! This time however, I didn't use any fat-free half and half in the potatoes. I mixed about half a cup or so of powdered milk into 6-8 ounces of skim milk, heated it up and used that in place of the fat-free half and half. Dry powdered milk is great resource to keep on hand for stuff like that so I recommend keeping some in your pantry. I know some folks mix it up and drink it instead of fresh milk. Honestly, I can't take the taste of it straight up, so I try to use it in recipes where you can't taste it and save the fresh milk for when you can taste it.

Anyhoo, since my brisket was 4.64lbs/2.10466 kg, I had a wee bit leftover. I reheated it and the potatoes Tuesday night, and that was a quick dinner but, I've still got quite a bit left. I bought some masa harina the other day thinking that some fresh warm corn tortillas would be nice. I had just read Kelly's post over at evilshenanigans.com about her homemade flour tortillas, so I had tortillas on the brain. I've never made flour tortillas with lard so I need to try that too as I would probably love them. Sorry, I'm all rambly today! *smack self upside the head*

So I got out my ginormous bag of pinto beans, and measured out three cups into a colander and gave the beans a nice little bath, sorted through and got rid of any stones, cracked beans, etc.. and then drained out all of the water.




I put my nice clean beans into my crackpot ( I know that is wrong but, the spellchecker likes it better than crockpot and well, I am a crackpot!) and put the shredded up leftover brisket on top.

I didn't get a picture of it shredded so use your imagination.


Then I grabbed the following out of my spice cabinet of doom:
garlic powder
paprika
chili powder
liquid smoke
cayenne pepper
onion powder
Adobo seasoning from Penzey's spices ( I got this for free the last time I ordered from them. If they had a retail store here I would be so broke!!) I didn't measure I just eyeballed some of each and threw them in the pot.



I also threw in some freshly ground black pepper. Yep, some of the spices are duplicated and my garlic powder is AWOL in that picture but, we are being rebels today. Whoot!

I cooked it on high in my crockpot for an hour, and then switched it over to low and then it cook till supper time. So an hour on high and about 6 hours on low or until your beans are nice and soft. Why the crockpot you may ask when its cold and the heat from the stove would feel nice? Because the weather here has gone nutball city. The highs have been in the high eighties/low nineties the last two days (for you Celcius folks, think low thirties). With those kinda temps, if I have both the stove and the computer on it gets pretty warm in here!

If you need to get this going before you have to leave for work, don't mess with the hour on high and just let it cook all day on low or at least eight hours. Check your little book that came with your crockpot or slowcooker to make sure but, I seem to remember that every hour on high is the equivalent of two hours on low. My grandmother routinely let her beans cook in the crockpot for 12 hours on low. So please don't worry if you have a long day ahead of you.


I opened up the crock to check to see that the beans were cooked through, and broke up the meat with my spoon a bit. Then I tasted and adjusted the seasonings, and threw in some masa harina to thicken it up a bit. I added 1/4 cup but, I think 2-3 Tablespoons would have been better. Be sure and stir it up good all the way to the bottom of your crock so you don't have big blobs of masa harina.



Then I tried my hand at homemade corn tortillas.

Here are my dough balls ready to be squished out.


I don't have a tortilla press so I had to get in touch with my *gulp* inner Sandra Lee and get out the box of zippy bags. I resisted the urge to pile all the dough balls inside, snip off a corner, and squeeze the dough ONto something. Instead, I took one gallon sized zippy bag and cut down both side seams so that I could open up the bag like a book. Then I placed a dough ball inside and closed the "book" back up, and used a drinking glass as a rolling pin to flat out the dough ball into some rough idea of a circle. You can of course use a rolling pin. I just used a glass because I have a small kitchen and I don't have enough counter space over by the stove to use my rolling pin.


It will not be perfect so just let go of that idea right now. Then you peel back the top layer of plastic, and flip the tortilla over so the plastic is on top and the side with the tortilla is resting on your hand. Slowly start to peel off the plastic and expect it to stick a bit or even tear so do don't freak out if it does. Just pat it back together and keep going.



Then just plop it in your nice hot pan and cook on both sides till its done.



I selected a picture of one of my uglier ones so that nobody feels bad if their tortillas look more like amoebas than circles. I got better results as I worked my way through the dough. I do want to get a tortilla press though as it would go faster and I would have more uniform results. Keep your tortillas warm as they come out of the pan. I just put a folded up dishtowel on a plate and slid them under the fold as I finished each one. If you want to use store bought tortillas you can but, you should heat them up a bit before serving. You can use either flour or corn tortillas for this depending on what you like.

To eat these, you take some of the filling and place it on your tortilla and put whatever you want on top or leave it plain and fold it or roll it up. Eat with your hands or use a knife and fork if you prefer.

Time for plating and judging. Mr. Hairball said, "You have insulted my taste buds!" Just kidding, a little Iron Chef humor.

Actually he said: "Whoot! This is f'ntastic!"



Don't forget we've still got coconut cake in the fridge. Who wants some cake?

Hairball's big adventure

While I was out on Friday, I took some pictures.



It was a beautiful day on Friday. It started out in the 30's but FalWinSpri is just about over as the high was in the 70's today. (We don't have distinct seasons where I live, so FalWinSpri is what I call the 4-5 months of the year when the daytime highs are generally less than 80 degrees.) I know some of my readers up north are sick and tired of winter. Look at the sky in this picture and think how pretty it will be in your location when Spring comes.



Here I'm pumping some gas. It was incredibly thrilling, let me tell you! What? Oh, it was $1.65 a gallon.


I went out to the wholesale club today and look what I found! Click to enlarge to get a better view.


It's individual portions of hummus with a portion of pretzel crisps. Okay, so maybe you don't want to make your own hummus, but do you really need pretzel crisps packaged with it? Dumb, dumb, dumb!


Remember that fabulous recipe for casserole of tongue I posted a few days ago? Well here's some tongue so everybody can make some this weekend. Whoot!



Okay, well how about some cake? Here's a strawberry King Cake.


Uh, should the strawberry portion of the program be oozing out like that? I think it's more of a cake wreck myself.

This next one I call Sybil.


If you enlarge it so you can see the label, it says "Cinnamon Coffee Cake King Cake" Um, I guess it's only got two personalities so we should call it Sybil light. It's also looks like part of it is gone there on the left. Could somebody take a sandwich over to the bakery folks so they don't have to eat the baked goods? Thank you!


I saw some Easter decorations while I was out reminding me that Easter will be here pretty soon. Shrikes everywhere know that means we can look forward to Sandy's Bunny Cake showing up on our televisions!!



Sorry, I can't find a picture of hers but, you shouldn't have to wait too long till it shows back up again. Whoot!

Here's some cast iron pans anxiously awaiting owners who will not make Sandy recipes in them.



My grandmother had that pan that looks like little ears of corn. I always wanted the cornbread from that pan instead of the big pan.

Can anybody identify what these two items are? (No, they are not implants so quit snickering!) My cashier had no idea and had to ask me what they were, so I thought I'd see if anybody else had trouble.


Okay here's a big hint. ;)



Lastly, I made a pilgrimage to the Kitchen Aid Standmixers that were on display.



A moment of silence please to honor those mixers kept in bondage by Sandra Lee and who therefore will never be allowed to reach their full potential.



Have a good weekend everyone!!