Brisket!!

This weekend was quite an adventure. I made my first brisket! How awesome is that? Found a fantastically easy recipe on food network website. Bought the ingredients. Compiled them, cooked them, and whala. A fantastic dinner Saturday and awesome Taco meat for Sunday. Basically, went to the Farmer's Market, got a 4lber. Laid it out in a 9x13 pan after salting and peppering. Sliced onions and spread them over top. Mix the liquids with the garlic and brown sugar and pour it over top. Cooks for three hours with foil over it, take it out, take off the foil and cooks again for another 45 minutes. Now, it was a fat piece and so portions of it were a little dry as they weren't all the way in the liquid. Next time I will trim it so it is all able to be in the liquid. And I forgot to let it sit before slicing. However, those eating it didn't appear to notice these little glitches. They were very impressed with this easy process.

Now served with the brisket the first night was a salad I had just watch Giada make. Took a cucumber and with a peeler made ribbon slices, then blanched asparagus and sliced it on the diagonal. Mixed this with lemon juice and olive oil. Then my only change was I sprinkled parmesan over top because I had it.

The next day was the Mexican Potluck. Did quite a few little tests. And oddly enough they all kind of worked. Supplied the brisket meat and meat from a rotisserie chicken from Publix. For sauces, I took hints from two Rachael Ray recipes. For one I combined Tequila Lime Salsa and sour cream. This was by far the favorite sauce. Then also made a Chipotle Cream, Mayo, mint, scallions, and chipotle peppers in adobe sauce. Not as much of a hit but when people tasted it they did like it. Just not as much as the other.

However, I think my best of the night was the salsa. This I had made before, in a cooking class I took. But I changed some things. Its supposed to be yellow corn, I used sweet, it wants a white onion but I thought a red onion would give a richer taste, it also had red pepper, tomato, cilantro, sun dried tomatoes, lime juice, and small bit of red vinegar. The corn was dry roasted, onion sauted, red pepper put over the gas flame to char but it was my first time trying it out so it didn't char enough. But I was scared of charring it too much! Next time I will be more patient and brave, I swear. Still, people were in love with my salsa. So victory.

In the past week I will say I've had more successes and no real failures. This has been great for my confidence in the kitchen. And its nice when I can throw a shindig and people can really enjoy the food and each other's company. I love playing hostess. Its so much fun!