Oven goodness

Tonight's Menu

• oven-cooked beef brisket
  
• baked potatoes
  
• coleslaw
  

This was a really easy dinner. With just a bit of prep up-front, this will cook all day with no interference from you. You can even make the coleslaw the day before!

For the brisket, I made a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, ground cumin, dried oregano, salt & pepper and rubbed that on both sides of the meat. Then I sort of improvised a roasting rack by putting crumpled balls of tin foil in the bottom of a roasting pan and laying the meat, fat side up, on top of that. I poured a bit of water into the pan (around, but not on top of, the brisket), then covered it tightly with foil and put it into a 225 degree oven for about five hours. That's it! All you have to do is take it out of the oven, let it rest for about 10 minutes, then slice it thinly against the grain and serve. Easy!

The potatoes were likewise easy -- they were wrapped in foil and baked alongside the roasting pan for the last 3 hours of cooking time. I put out butter, shredded cheese, sour cream and chopped cooked bacon so everyone could fix their own potato however they liked it.

I would have served some freezer pickles along with this meal but I forgot to take them out of the freezer ahead of time. D'oh!