Beautiful weather gives me the energy to experiment with new recipes and try new things.

Those sunny skies make me want to share a good old fashioned Kansas City brisket with friends and neighbors. This Championship Brisket is the perfect canvas on which to bring out my artistic flair.

When I buy brisket I intend to personalize it with something like a traditional Kansas City dry rub (like this delicious Kansas City Rub recipe) or maybe even something spicy like this recipe for Barbeque Rub that includes cayenne pepper and chili powder.

While the Kansas City Rub features dry mustard and ground cumin, there’s a special rub I really adore called Rubbed the Right Way. It calls for brown sugar (delish!), basil, oregano and lots of other great seasonings. It’s a fantastic combo of flavors that really brings out the natural flavor of the brisket.

Ready to try your own? Check out more brisket rub inspiration here and enjoy!

Tonight Hanukkah begins.

It’s a gorgeous celebration with wonderful traditions.

For me, the food is what I like hearing about the most.

And this beef brisket is a traditional recipe that is sure to please. You can do it in the crock pot so it’s hassle free! And it creates its own gravy. Genius!

Click here for the full recipe and enjoy these days with your loved ones – no matter what you celebrate!

Photo courtesy of Linda Larsen via BusyCooks.About.com.

My eternal love affair with all things beef continues . . .

The weather around here is heating up (thank goodness!) and so is our electric smoker. We broke it out this weekend to smoke up a wonderful beef brisket.

If you love beef, I’m telling ya, you’d love this brisket.

We just put a garlic, salt and pepper rub on the brisket before putting it in the smoker at 200 degrees F for 10 hours. Ours was about 13 lbs. so it was pretty big.

We then put some hickory wood chips and a couple of charcoal briquettes in the wood box, closed the door and voila!

We use a SmokinTex model 1400 cuz it’s so easy. And we like easy.

We actually did it overnight. So, as we slept, our brisket was smoking. What a delight to wake up the next morning to the smell of a smoked brisket!

We wrapped it in foil and let it sit in the oven (we didn’t turn it on) until we were ready to heat it up and serve it. About 45 minutes before we were ready to eat we heated it at 250 degrees in the oven. Just to warm it up.

Oh. Yum. 

We whipped up some mashed potatoes, had a salad, poured some BBQ sauce over it and we were set!

But that’s not all. Tomorrow I’ll show you what else we made . . .