Thursdays Are For Cooking!

Well, it is Thursday again, and where I inhabit this lovely planet, it is still cold enough to make you wonder when the ice sheets will start heading south again.

So I’m including two (count  ’em) recipes this time, which are good in any weather, but in a chilly world, they’re even better, and they are good for those times when you expect company with hungry looks on their faces.

And because Aysel is always looking for slow cooker stuff, this is a prep-ahead, easy pair of recipes to follow. It should keep the household pets dreaming about beef and sausages for a while.  🙂

French dip made with onion soup mix

Ingredients:

One 3-pound beef brisket

One envelope of onion soup mix

One 14-ounce can of beef broth

8 large French rolls, split

Put beef brisket in a slow cooker. Mix onion soup mix into beef broth in a small bowl; pour over brisket.

Cook on LOW 7 to 9 hours.

Remove brisket to a cutting board and cut into slices. Fill rolls with beef. Ladle juices from slow cooker into 4 to 6 individual bowls to serve with the sandwiches for dipping.

BBQ beans with smoked sausage

Ingredients:

1 ring of Polish smoked beef sausage

2 cans of red beans, canned in chili sauce if you can find them

1 large onion, chopped

1 cup of yo’ fave rave BBQ sauce

¼ cup of spicy Dijon mustard, preferably the stone-ground kind with mustard seeds

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce – you can substitute soy sauce if you don’t have this

Put all the ingredients EXCEPT the sausage into a 3 to 4-quart crock pot/slow cooker, and stir thoroughly.  Then put the sausage on top of the bean mixture and cover the pot. It may sink in a little, but that makes it better.

And tell the curious to LEAVE THE POT ALONE! They’ll let all the flavor out if they lift the lid.

Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or until you can smell the BBQ sauce when you come indoors out of the rain (or snow).

Adjust the seasonings to suit yourself. The original recipe calls for chili powder, but beans canned in chili sauce don’t need it. You can also add black beans to this. Canned beans are already cooked and ready to use, to save time.

The original recipe also calls for ¼ cup of packed brown sugar, but I think that makes it too icky sweet and isn’t necessary.  I usually use a half bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s Hickory BBQ sauce, which has enough sugar in it.

NOTE: This will give you 4 servings, and when you add cole slaw, potato salad, and a side dish of cut veggies, it’s a complete meal. Adjust ingredient amounts according to the number of people to be served and their hunger levels. If you’re going to serve 6 to 8 people, add another sausage link.

Keep the home fires burning and throw the Greenbeans and ecohippies a bone to pick. I hear they’re afraid of meat. 🙂

 

Category: Economy