The cooking closet

I give my mom a hard time. A lot. About a lot of things, but mostly her cooking. Mostly because she HATES cooking. In her defense, she grew up in Wyoming and not anything against Wyoming, I love it there, in the summer, but when she was younger, it wasn’t like she could just go to the store and have any kind of fresh produce all year long. It wasn’t common or economical to have strawberries shipped up from South America, or avocados, or anything really. They were eating fresh, local, and in season before it was cool. Plus there were four kids my grandpa was raising, he wasn’t concerned with presentation, flavor profiles, and creativity, he wanted to get everyone fed, on a budget.

It’s not that my mom is a bad cook, she’s actually pretty good when she does it and is not overdosing us on cinnamon. That was her favorite spice and put it in everything. To this day, my brother won’t eat it, and I don’t do “gratuitous cinnamon”.

This kind of touches on what Winnie commented the other day about growing up on a farm and deciding to always go to the store instead. I completely understand not wanting the hassle of cooking. I was there. When my brother left for college, it was just my mom and I for a while. There were a lot of soup nights, popcorn, roll some cheese up in a tortilla, stick it in the microwave, and call it a cheese enchilada. I was also known to make cookie dough with friends and just eat it raw. When my mom met my step-dad, I learned that cooking could be….fun! You could create, play, and have a good time while preparing a meal! I should also note here that I was 120 lbs at this time, and now, well, I’m not, but I learned to like cooking. It was fun, but I never really came out of the closet as liking to cook until I was much older. Well, not MUCH, I’m still pretty young. I knew I would be misunderstood. No one would get my passion.

I rarely make the same thing twice. I have a few things I make in regular rotation, but for the most part, I try new things.

One of the things in my regular rotation is a recipe my mom used to make. It’s her three day brisket. I don’t know why she stopped making it. It’s delicious, and it’s not hard or time consuming at all.

You take a brisket, preferably from Burgundy:

On the first day you put some liquid smoke on it, wrap it up, and stick it back in the fridge over night.

The next day, you pull it out, rub salt, onion powder, and garlic powder all over it

And you stick it in the oven at 300 for about five hours or so.

Oh, put a cover on it.
When it’s done, let it cool and stick it back in the fridge.

The next day, pull it out and it’s going to look pretty gross

Looks like its in a cold bath of lard, and it is, basically. There is the lard on top, and meat Jell-O underneath

Mmmmm tasty. I won’t lie, I’ve thought about using the lard as a moisturizer. I’ve also wondered if I can gain weight that way, like absorbing the calories. I’ve also decided that I don’t need the dog licking me in my sleep and getting ideas.

Back to dinner. It’s time to make the sauce:
Melt butter and brown sugar in a pot

Then add liquid smoke, celery seed, mustard powder, Worcestershire,

And ketchup.

I don’t usually go the recipe route, I’m more of a trial and error girl. That’s backfired a time or ten when I make something good, and don’t know how I did it. I don’t mess around with this though, it’s good stuff. I mostly use the recipe….. Mostly.

Once the sauce is ready, slice up the brisket against the grain, and put it in the sauce.

Stir it up, let the sauce and meat warm up, and the sauce will permeate the meat too.

You can eat this as is, or put it on a bun. Either way, it’s delicious!

Plating note. I usually eat off the smaller salad plate, as a way of portion control, but tonight I thought this would look better on a big square, yellow plate. And yes, I are more than I should have.