beef brisket part 2

toot! toot! mutha f'n toot!

i kicked a beef brisket's ass last night!

i let that baby marinate, wrapped up tightly in foil, for almost 2 days before sticking it in a 300 degree oven at 11:00 am on saturday morning. i didn't even peek in or loosen up the foil. i just stuck it in the oven.

it's a good thing i didn't have to do too much prep work. ring of fire (a redonkulous drinking game), dancing at thursday's and a shot of (bad) tequila in honor of a friend's birthday put a real hurtin' on me so most of saturday was spent on my couch watching pbs.

about 5:00 i finally drug my ass off the couch (dinner was scheduled for 7:30) and got started. first i peeked in at my brisket.

this is after 6 totally unattended hours.



my first side dish was mk's baked beans. first things first - i had to fry up some bacon.



once the bacon was crisp i drained it on paper towels, let it cool and then crumbled it. i poured out the drippings and browned 1/2 a chopped onion and a pound of ground chuck. i drained the beef and in a big mixing bowl added the beef, the bacon, butter beans, kidney beans, pork 'n beans and
some ketchup, brown sugar and spices.

i poured all of that into a casserole dish and it baked for about an hour.

i also decided to roast some potato wedges and make some candied carrots. i candied our only vegetable! ha!



i cut the potatoes into wedges and tossed them with olive oil, lemon pepper and sea salt. i just roasted these on a big cookie sheet.

while i was slicing the carrots i melted about 3-4 tablespoons of butter in my skillet. once it was starting to brown i added the carrots and a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar. the carrots cooked over medium heat until they were nice and caramelized. mmmm.

i also whipped up some of my kick ass bbq sauce. this sauce seriously rules. i get a ton of compliments on it. it is worlds away from that sugary sweet ketchup based stuff i grew up with. ick.

the vinegar and mustard gives this sauce real tang and the cayenne is the perfect kick. it's good on anything. delish!



as you can tell from the photograph the brisket was very fatty. roasting it fat side up lets all that goodness soak into the meat but i certainly don't wanna put it on a sandwich!

since the meat was so tender the fat just pulled off with a knife and fork. pioneer woman says to put the meat back into the sauce once you cut the fat off and slice it up but that was a no go. my marinade cooked down pretty far and it was too thick and sticky to put the meat back in. instead i shredded the meat and served it on a platter with the bbq sauce on the side.

here's the whole spread.



aNw brought a really good salad which was very refreshing considering the meat loaded, buttery, saucey mania we were indulging in.

it was so good that towards the end of the evening i walked into the kitchen and saw some peeps dipping the meat right into the sauce. ha!



i did it too though and damn....it was good.

brisket conquered!

toot! toot!