When I planned out this culinary adventure, I made sure to spread beef recipes throughout the month because, as I've mentioned before, my family loves steak and really loves pretty much any beef. So when Day 11's recipe, Slow-Cooker Brisket Sandwiches with Quick Pickles, appeared on the calendar I was pretty confident that dinner would be liked by my crew. Sadly, the meal was not the win I had hoped it would be.
Crockpot meals are wonderful for busy nights and this recipe is no exception. In fact, the best thing about this recipe is that all the work can be done on your schedule, hours before you actually eat. If you need to prep early in the morning, you can put your slow cooker on low. If you need to prep at lunch, you can do that too and just put it on high.
I started this recipe at 8 a.m. by mixing the spice blend and then flavoring the meat. My local grocery store only had a 15-pound brisket, so I had to 7make a major substitution in this 8recipe by using a chuck roast and shoulder roast as the cuts of beef. Once I had seasoned my two beef cuts, I seared them in the skillet as directed in the recipe. One piece of advice if you plan to make this recipe, make sure your beef cut fits in your skillet before you actually warm up the skillet with the hot oil. I had to do some squishing to get my two pieces to fit and wished I had measured before.
After both sides of the beef were seared, in it went to the crockpot. Low and slow for me since dinner was still 10 hours away.
I then turned my attention to making the pan sauce that would go over the beef. The recipe calls for a type of smoked beer, but we didn't have that and frankly, if I had purchased a 6-pack of it, the five remaining would never have gotten drank so I used an IPA we had in the fridge to deglaze the pan and make the sauce. Once it reduced for about five minutes, I poured it over the beef in the crockpot, put on the lid, and walked away from the kitchen.
Meal prep started again around 5 p.m. when I diced some sweet potatoes to serve on the side of our sandwiches. After peeling and dicing, I tossed them in olive oil and then with some of the same spices as the beef - cumin, paprika, and S&P - to compliment the flavors. In they went to a 425 degree oven for 35 minutes.
After the sweet potatoes went into the oven, I made the quick pickles for the sandwiches. I had never make quick pickles before so I followed the recipe as directed. They were easy and straight-forward to make but I did leave out the onions in the pickling because I knew no one in my house would eat them.
I continued on the condiment train and made the garlic mayo next. I use diced garlic for all my recipes; you may have seen it in some of my ingredient photos. It cuts down on prep time so much and stays good forever! However, I discovered the first (and only , in my opinion) draw back to the pre-diced garlic when trying to make the mayo. The recipe called for smashing the garlic to turn it into a paste. I've always been able to easily do this with my fresh garlic. Unfortunately, the diced garlic did not smash. It just scooted around the cutting board. After a few minutes of frustration, I gave up and just mixed it with mayo as is. The final result tasted very good but there were small chunks of garlic throughout so if that bothers you, make sure you have fresh on hand to smash.
My timer for the beef went off shortly after I finished the pickles and mayo. Shredding was extremely easy and I was able to just break apart the beef with plastic tongs. Once everything was pulled around, I turned the beef a few times to soak up the remaining juice in the pot before I started assembly.
The sandwiches came together easily - bun, mayo, beef, pickles. I had tasted everything independently and thought it tasted pretty good but the pickles were very tart. However, the beef was so rich, I thought the sandwiches needed the punch of acid to break up the richness. In addition to the sandwiches and sweet potatoes, I also made some boxed noodles and added grapes to fill up the plate.
Well, my confidence in the beef meal didn't last long. While no one spit out the sandwich, there were no requests for extras or to make it again. Everyone did agree they loved the sweet potatoes and Lucas (the six-year-old), who LOVES sour things, requested extra homemade pickles on his plate. However, overall I don't think this meal will be making our table again.
Highs:
I learned a new technique of how to make quick pickles.
Everyone devoured the sweet potatoes...including Bennett which means I have one veggie I can serve him with confidence!
Lows:
Aside from the cauliflower mac & cheese disaster, this meal had the lowest average score.
The Scores:
Joel: 1.5
Allison: 2.5
Parker: 2
Lucas: 3 (2 of the points are for the sweet potatoes)
Bennett: 1
Ashlynn: 2.5
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