Slow Cooker Oxtail

Mel is always excited to order oxtail from Caribbean restaurants.  With the right spices and preparation, the meat can be so tender and flavorful - a nice break from the normal rotation of chicken, pork and steak.  Unfortunately, she's never found oxtail at our local supermarkets.  Well, during the pandemic we started ordering meat deliveries directly from two awesome butchers in NY (Cassanova Meats and Vincent's Meat Market), and they carry oxtail!  

Knowing that oxtail meat would naturally be a bit tough, Mel wanted her first recipe attempt to involve the slow cooker.  Some of the recipes promising "Caribbean" flavors involved a million ingredients and she just wasn't in the mood for all that rigmarole, so she found this simpler one:  Southern Smothered Oxtails.

 We admittedly improvised a bit (i.e. adding a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes for extra sauciness), but the basics of the recipe were super easy to follow and yielded delicious results!  

 

Jersey Exploration: Millburn Deli

When we first moved to Jersey, everyone told us we had to check out Millburn Deli for the best sandwiches - particularly their famous Gobbler (a Thanksgiving meal in sandwich form) and Godfadda.

So the first few times we came to the house to start setting it up before moving in, we picked up sandwiches from there for lunch.  Here we are enjoying our first Gobblers before we had any furniture.  (Seems like a million years ago!) 

Over the years, we've enjoyed branching out and trying a lot of Millburn Deli's other fun offerings.  

 Here's a running list of them (screen shots from their DoorDash menu), each one as delicious as the next and highly recommended.

 

 

 

Vegetarian Breakfast Casserole

One week when we wanted a break from meats, we decided to try out this Vegetarian Breakfast Casserole recipe.  The roasted veggies were so delicious, Mel almost ate them all out of the pan before adding them to the egg mixture.  Sometimes having breakfast for dinner is a nice change of pace.  

 Screenshots of recipe from WellPlated.com:

Sheet Pan Dinner Guide from NYT

New York Times Cooking posted these super helpful graphics on their Instagram - a guide for making sheet pan dinners.  Definitely wanted to share/save them on our blog for future reference!

GH Best Slow Cooker Brisket

 Back during the holiday season, Hana and Josh were committed to seeing family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So they admirably quarantined in Josh's parents' basement for two weeks so they could join them for a Thanksgiving dinner.  Then, after staying there for a few weeks, they headed up to CT and stayed with the Haile-Mariam crew for Christmas through New Year's Day.  It took a lot of dedication, but they did it and it was awesome to be able to have family time during the pandemic.  (Especially since now that they're back in BK, we probably won't see them until it's warm enough for socially-distanced outdoor gatherings.)  

During that quarantined window, they stopped at our house for a break on the long drive from DC to CT.  As luck would have it, the stop was on the second day of Hanukkah so we decided to make a traditional holiday meal to celebrate.  Mel knew the main meat should be brisket, but that cut of beef can be notoriously tough.  After a bit of research for the best brisket slow cooker recipes, she came upon this one from Good Housekeeping. 

She was a bit skeptical because the recipe is so simple.  Would it really be tasty and tender?  The answer:  YES!  This was the best brisket she's ever made.  And the best part: we froze some of the leftovers, and it tastes just as delicious (dare we say, better?!) reheated weeks later.  This recipe is for sure a keeper.  (Hence, the very delayed but effusive blog post.)

Here are the GH recipe details copied and pasted in case the link above ever breaks:

Ingredients

• 1 beef brisket (about 4 lbs.), trimmed
• 1 can (14 oz.) crushed tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 medium red onion, sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• Finely chopped parsley, for garnish

Directions

1. Season brisket with 3/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper; add to large slow-cooker bowl along with crushed tomatoes and garlic. Cover and cook on low 10 hours in slow cooker or Instant Pot, or until very tender.
2. About 25 minutes before meat is ready, on large rimmed baking sheet, toss red onion and yellow onion with olive oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Roast at 425°F 20 minutes or until browned. Top brisket with roasted onions and finely chopped parsley. 

Our Alterations 

Mel accidentally put both the red and yellow onion in the slow cooker with the tomatoes and garlic at the beginning of cooking time.  So we wound up skipping the second step altogether and it still turned out great!  Score for a 1-pot dish.

2021: Attitude of Gratitude

First post of 2021!  Our posts for 2020 were clearly lagging.  We had some cool food adventures at home, but the days went by in a blur of Zoom school/work and wiping down groceries so we rarely had a chance to keep up with blogging.  But we wanted to mark the first day of 2021 with the theme of the year: Attitude of Gratitude.  The key to facing each day of the pandemic is to take a moment each day to remember what we're grateful for.  Because truly, while the lives we were used to were completely turned upside down we still have so many reasons to be thankful.  Most importantly right now: our health, our extended family's health, the roof over our heads, and the food we eat.  So in honor of that, here's a picture celebrating our annual Soup Joumou (Mel is pretty sure it was her best one yet!).

And also in the spirit of gratitude, we want to offer up a huge thank you to Hirut for creating this AMAZING cake for our little guy's 5th birthday.  All the CT fam quarantined for 14 days in order to be able to have a maskless visit with us for Christmas, and they surprised us with an early birthday celebration!  Our resident space expert was over the moon (pun intended) when he saw this special treat just for him.  Unforgettable.