Farewell

It has been a fun time writing this blog, though I will admit there were times when I was more into it than others. Unfortunately, I have moved to a new apartment where I won't be able to do crockpot cooking so I feel that this is a good time to wind down the blog. I will leave the blog up and hopefully some will come and find my recipes to be useful, but at this stage I think I am ready for a little break. Thank you to all who have read my post and shared their thoughts and experiences. I have always said that anyone can make great BBQ food in a crockpot and that still holds true. I have never been a great chef, but I still have been able to make food that people have enjoyed. Best of luck to all in their future cooking endeavors.

Best Regards,

-The Crockpot Alchemist

New Year's BBQ Brisket Sliders

As promised. Here the recipe for the New Year's brisket sliders. I forgot to take more pics and before I knew it they were gone. I got some great shots of the beef with my digital camera though. I was clearly due for an upgrade from my old camera.

Ingredients
3-4 lbs of trimmed beef brisket
7-8 tablespoons of your favorite BBQ rub
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon of molasses
36 mini hamburger rolls
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce

Mix up the honey, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke and water until evenly blended. Pour the mixture over the meat. Get in there with your hands and make sure all of the meat is evenly coated. Put it in the fridge and let it marinate overnight. You can let it sit for 24 hours if you have time.

I learned while watching the Food Network that putting salt on meat pulls moisture out of it and can cause it to dry out. For this reason I did not put any spices on my meat until right before I put in the crockpot. Not sure if it made a big difference, but I thought the brisket was even moister than usual.

Take out the meat apply your bbq rub until everything is evenly coated. Drop your meat in the crockpot and let it cook on low for 10-12 hours, depending on how hot your crock runs. If you are able to, turn over your meat half way through. I cooked this batch while I as at work so I didn't have a chance to do this. Particularly if you have two separate pieces of meat, I have found that the top piece is a little more dry than bottom piece that has spent most of the cooking time cooking in it's own juices.

Once you are done cooking, use two forks to shred up the brisket and pour in about 1/2 of your BBQ sauce and stir together. I found that the rub I used was a bit more salty than I had expected, but was able to correct this by adding an extra tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of molasses to kick up the sweetness of the meat. You can always make small changes even after the meat is finished cooking if you want to adjust your flavors.

All in all the sliders were a great success. Next time I need to remember to take more photos before all my food disappears.