Braised Brisket

Let me begin by giving you a little insight into meal time in my house. As I mentioned before, I have 3 kids and a husband. My 11 year old can eat as much as an adult on any given day. My almost 7 year old eats like a normal kid and my 2 year old usually does not eat the same meals we do. He is Autistic and also has food aversions. We also strongly suspect dairy intolerance/allergy (different from lactose intolerance). We also strongly suspect he is gluten intolerant as well. (We're scheduled for food allergy testing in 2 weeks.) All of this is great for eating a Primal/Paleo diet! Except his food aversions cause him to completely refuse great foods like meat and vegetables. So for the majority of the meals I cook, they are split between myself, my husband and two older kids. Sometimes there are leftovers, sometimes not, depends on the recipe. Now that you know that nugget of information about me, let's move on to the food!

Braised Brisket - Cook time total 5 hours.

I found this recipe months ago and had yet to try it because I had never had brisket before and wasn't sure where to buy it or what I was even looking for. The few times I had looked, my local Food Lion did not carry it. I finally found some at the Commissary (grocery store for Military people), but it was a large cut, almost 9 pounds! It was $31.99 for the whole thing, but the recipe calls for 2 pounds. So I brought it home, cut it into fourths and froze the individual chunks. Those chunks cost roughly $7.99 a piece and will make us dinner on 4 occasions.

I also don't own a fancy schmancy braising pan, so I used a corning ware dish I already owned.

Ingredients:
2 lb beef brisket ($7.99)
1 can Muir Glen Organic (no salt) tomato sauce ($2.00)
1 onion, chopped ($0.42)
Salt & pepper to taste (already had)
Dried basil and oregano, to taste (already had some, but assume you need to buy some $3.00 total)

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.Cover the bottom of your braising pan (or corning ware dish) with chopped onions.
3.Place brisket over the onion.
4.Sprinkle the brisket on either side generously with salt, pepper, dried basil and dried oregano.
5.Place brisket in the oven for 1 hour, uncovered.
6.After 1 hour, remove brisket from the oven and reduce the oven temp to 325 degrees.
7.Pour canned tomato sauce over the brisket, sprinkle again with salt, pepper, basil and oregano.
8.Cover pan with a lid and cook for a remaining 4 hours at 325 degrees.

Total meal cost: $13.41 for 5 people to have generous servings.
Total per person: About $2.68

Review: This recipe ROCKS! My kids LOVED it and said they would gladly eat it again. It was flavorful and delicious and I could easily see putting this into a coconut flour tortilla or even chopping some up and adding it to eggs or a fritatta in the morning.

Try this recipe, you will not be disappointed!

-Tracy