Unless you’re vegetarian, I don’t know how you can look at that picture and not want it.  Like right now.  From the juicy melt-in-your-mouth bites to the tangy sweet barbecue sauce.  Triple yum.  Brisket is definitely one of my favorite cuts of meat.  And, to be quite honest, that’s saying a lot because I know very little about cuts of meat.  What I do know about brisket is that it benefits from low and slow cooking.  And a light hand with seasonings and such.  And doesn’t need much in the way of babysitting.  And gives great rewards.  And, really, after you know all that, what else is there?

I have several go-to brisket recipes, and they all take very little in the way of prep time or ingredients, and by the end of a few uninterrupted hours in the oven, you’ll be oohing and aahing over the most tender meat imaginable.  Like just-falls-apart tender.

These days, now that summer seems to be finally rearing her hot and humid head, I’m all about getting in and out of the kitchen.  The kitchen, quite frankly, is a square little sweatbox.  Our handyman says I outsmarted myself last year by closing off a wall in the kitchen.  I hate admitting that he’s right, but while adding that wall gave me extra much-needed cabinets and counterspace, it severely closed off the air flow in the kitchen.  All the more reason for easy and delicious dinners that keep me out of the sweatbox.

Sometimes I do an overnight brisket.  Nothing like waking up to that deliciousness in the morning.  But recently I was looking to try something a little different, and went by way of this recipe that I found on The Perfect Pantry’s website.  I tinkered with the ingredients a bit, mostly to use what I had on hand to save an extra trip to the grocery store, but brisket is fairly forgiving, so all’s good.

The reward just a few hours later?  Tender, juicy little morsels that just melt in your mouth.  You’ll be oohing and aahing loud enough that they’ll hear in the next room.  But don’t be too loud.  Because then you’ll have to share.