Earl Cooks Smoked Brisket & Veggies for Sunday Dinner

Roast Beef was one of my mom's favorite Sunday dinners to cook, because it was a one-pot meals that could cook while we were at Sunday Services. On the TV series "Big Bang Theory Howard Wolowitz's mother makes a nice brisket, and of course for St. Patrick's Day corned beef brisket becomes corned beef & cabbage. We never had brisket growing up, just whatever roast was on sale. This last summer I was introduced to Capt. Len's Smoked brisket, and fell in love!

In years past when I had brisket in other BBQ places it was okay, but often dry and not real flavorful.

But the Captain's is Special. Shown Right is a whole smoked brisket after the Captain's rub, developed over years, and then smoked for many hours. Below is the piece I was working with for our dinner.

I placed the brisket in my favorite slow cooker, to bring it up to temp. I don't need to add additional seasonings and it is fully cooked, so I line the slow cooker with onion slices to provide moisture and protect the brisket. Quartered Yukon Gold potatoes are placed on top of the onions and the juices from the brisket will run down and make them brown and luscious. A few carrots are placed around the crock-pot. I made a simple Au Jus to drizzle over all and leftover brisket becomes an awesome Sunday dinner.

I always want to have extra brisket on hand for this and many other meals. It goes great in Ramen, stew, sandwiches and I made some Jerky that was a real hit and I will share in an upcoming post.

Earl Cooks 2 Dishes and a Snack for a Christmas Feast at Daughter #2's House - Baked Beans

It seems the more I cook, and the more I learn about cooking, the more I find recipes that seem to copy my ideas on cooking. I know they aren't, or maybe they are catching up to a lazier way to a similar result. This happened recently while I watched Cook's Country on PBS. Right there was the way I had been making my baked beans in an episode from 2016. They called theirs "Backyard Barbecue Beans", but the idea is almost the same as the way I have made them for years! I'm not sure when I first made baked beans, mine have always been unique, or so I've been told. Mine are loaded with meats and a variety of beans. Mine have cooked onion and a bit of uncooked onion and more often than not, raw celery to give them CRUNCH. I always make them in a Crock-pot, since I discovered crock-pots many years ago. Slow cookers are great for large gatherings because you can keep everything at a great serving temperature and you can prep it and forget it...almost.

Earl Cooks Spiral Sliced, Honey Glazed Ham for Thanksgiving

I would like to say how difficult it is to prepare honey glazed ham, but the most difficult part of the process, aside from forking over the cash, is finding something big enough to heat and glaze 9 lbs of pork! My original plan was to do everything in the Crockpot, but that wouldn't work as big as it was...oh wait! I have a sous vide cooker that is SQUARE rather than oval! That will work, right...WRONG! This ham was still 2 inches too tall! No problem, rather than the lid I would just use foil. After covering I placed it in the oven at 350℉ for 1 hour to bring it up to temperature. Then using just the glaze provided by Hormel, and a pinch of ground clove, and a tablespoon of honey, I made the glaze. Taking it from the oven I brushed it all over the ham with a silicone pastry brush, turned the oven up to 425℉, and baked it for about 15-20 minutes, until the glaze set. You should try to get the glaze between the spiral slices, but I didn't. What seeped down on its own was fine for me, and the family raved about it. I then placed the slow-cooker liner in the base and kept it on high for about another hour, covered with foil. We were able to keep it warm with the slow-cooker, and it turned out great! Daughter #2 loved the ham liquid enough to use it as a sauce and the leftover are marvelous.

Hamilton Beach Professional Sous Vide/Slow Cooker

Earl Cooks Smoked Pulled Pork & Beans with thanks to Capt. Len

As a kid, I didn't much care for pork and beans...they were mostly Van Camp's from the can, and the only pork seemed to be some pork fat in the can that seemed uncooked. That was in the sixties. Fast forward to eighties where I ate some BAKED beans at a BBQ restaurant near me, Joe Morley's. No Pork but he had shredded brisket and were they ever meaty! That inspired me to develop my own recipe. I started with a Crockpot. A friend of mine tried with a pressure cooker and covered her kitchen in bean goo...I had time and wanted a meaty rendition. My ingredients usually included almost a pound of bacon and at least 2 kinds of beans, along with veggies, brown sugar and molasses or maple syrup. THEY BECAME A HIT, but they were different every time because I used no recipe. I was often asked to bring them to parties and dinners and enjoyed doing it. I would make a  big pot full and have leftovers galore.

This recipe pays homage to the days when I didn't care for the pork and beans and to the discovery of real flavorful baked beans, with a twist. My good friend since high school, Captain Len makes some great BBQ and I have some of his pulled pork, which I will use as the meat base. He makes a great BBQ sauce which I am using as part of the sauce. In memory of my childhood and as a nod to where I first tried these beans I am using Van Camps Pork & Beans as well as canned garbanzo beans. This is not so much a recipe as a compilation in a Crockpot. 

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Earl Cooks Smoked Pulled Pork & Beans with thanks to Capt. Len

by EarlCooks November-4-2017

Pork & Beans on steroids

Ingredients

• 1-1½ cup Smoked Pulled Pork
• 1 can (15 oz.) Garbanzo Beans AKA chickpeas (canned)
• 2 TBLS BBQ Sauce (your favorite)
• 1 small stalk Celery (chopped)
• ½ small Onion, yellow

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a small slow-cooker , draining the liquid from the garbanzo beans first, but keeping the liquid from the pork and beansstir all together thoroughly in the crock and heat on HIGH for 1 hour.After cooking on high for the first hour, add the onion and celery, stirring everything together then reduce to low for the next hour.When the vegetables are cooked al dente, serve it up with rolls or biscuits and embrace the smokiness!

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 2 hour Total time: 2 hour 10 mins Yield: 2 servings

Earl Cooks Chili Cheese Dogs in a Slow Cooker

Hamilton Beach Sous Vide/Slow Cooker

I really started this as a test of my newest gadget/appliance. Several months ago, I discovered Sous Vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for "under vacuum") cooking, especially for Steaks. I couldn't justify an immersion circulator, running a couple of hundred dollars, so after researching on You Tube and other sites, I was ready to try it with my Crock Pot, a thermometer and the steaks. It turns out that my wife much preferred this method which left the meat thoroughly cooked but not leather-like as she nomally would get it.  Move ahead 3 months or so and and I notice a Sous Vide appliance from Hamilton Beach that is under $60, that can be used as a Slow Cooker too! Well my birthday was coming soon, and my wife hates to shop for me so I told her I would get my own gift this year and she was ecstatic.

Well, moving on... I had used it to Sous Vide Steaks and Chicken and it worked very well, so the time had come to test it as a slow cooker. It doesn't have a "crock", rather a non stick metal liner. but it is rectangular rather than oval, which will be great for large roasts, brisket or corned beef and perfect for this recipe"

Slow Cooker Chili Cheese Dogs

Slow Cooker Chili Cheese Dogs

Ingredients

Jumbo Hot Dogs
Nalley's Hot Dog Chili Sauce (no bean chili will work too)
Mild Cheddar Cheese-shredded
Hot Dog Buns
1 Onion-chopped

Instructions

Set slow cooker to LOW
Spray with Pan Spray
Place Buns in bottom of cooker
Place Hot Dogs on top of buns
Allow to cook for 1 hour with lid on
Add Chili and onion
Allow to cook for 1 to 2 hours more
Top with cheese and allow to melt
Serve them up!

Results

I now know that as a Slow Cooker, this is not as gook as my Crock Pot, because of the lack of a crock. It is not intended to to absorb heat and release it later, so i would probably not use it again for this recipe. The Chili Dogs were very tasty and I would use a slow cooker to do it again