Tips:
- Use leftover eggnog in place of milk when making vanilla pudding.
- I often buy things for special holiday dinners that I don’t want my family to eat ahead of time. To prevent this, use stickers to put on the items to identify which things are off limits. Use stickers like turkeys or pilgrims for Thanksgiving, Christmas stickers for Christmas, or birthday stickers for a birthday party. This way, when your family sees the sticker, they will know not to touch.
- It is nice to have extra casseroles in the freezer this time of year in case you need a quick meal. If you aren’t sure a casserole will freeze well, make only one to eat that night and then freeze just a few tablespoons of it to see how it does. If it works, then the next time you make it you can make two – one to eat and one to freeze for a future meal.
Menu:
Brisket With Cranberry Sauce
Mashed Potatoes
Garden Vegetable Salad
Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake
Recipes:
Brisket Recipe with Cranberry Sauce
1 (2 1/2 lb.) beef brisket (fresh, not corned beef)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 (16 oz.) can cranberry sauce
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp. mustard
Season brisket with salt and pepper. Place in a 5 quart crockpot. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour on meat. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. When cutting brisket, thinly slice across the grain. Skim fat and serve juice with meat.
This salad is nice because you can prep the vegetables the night before and then toss it all together and let it set all day. By dinner time, it will be ready to set on the table — one less thing to think about!
Garden Vegetable Salad
2 cups of each:
Celery, sliced
Cauliflower, thinly sliced
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Carrots, thinly sliced
Cucumbers, sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced with the rings separated
Place vegetables in a large bowl.
Dressing:
3/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
3 Tbsp. white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground mustard
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
Place in a jar with a lid and mix. Pour over vegetables and toss. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. Serve with a slotted spoon.
Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake Recipe
1 pkg. Pillsbury fudge cake mix (This brand works best.)
1 can (21 oz.) cherry pie filling
1 tsp. almond extract (optional)
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine everything by hand, mixing well. Pour into a greased and floured 9×13 cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool and frost with:
Frosting:
1 cup sugar
5 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup milk
6 oz. chocolate chips
In a saucepan, bring sugar, butter and milk to a boil. Stir constantly and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in chips. Pour over cake and smooth out.
If you need some delicious and easy recipes that your family will love, check out our Dining On A Dime Cookbook and start saving today!
photo by:Ernesto Andrade
I found a long time ago…the conversions for cooking in a crock pot. They are as follows:
These conversions came from the Culinary Arts Institute.
Original Recipe Cook on LOW Cook on High
(180′-200′)for: (300′) for:
1/4 to 1/2 hr 4-8 hrs 1 1/2- 2 1/2 hrs
1/2 to 1 hr 6- 8 hrs 3-4 hrs
1 to 3 hrs 8-16 hrs 4-6 hrs
The Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake sounds so good!! And EASY for something that combines two of my favorite flavors, chocolate and cherry! I would guess for high altitude just trying adding the recommended additional flour on the box? and continue to just mix and bake per your directions. I’ve got to try this :)
Yes I think that would be all you need to do. Enjoy eating a piece for me. :)
For the chocolate cherry cake to you mix the cake mix the usual way with eggs etc or just mix dry mix with cherry pie filling?
You just mix the dry mix with the cherry pie filling, almond extract and eggs
My sister has moved into a small converted apt in the basement of her son’s house and will be cooking dinner for he and his wife and daughter as part of her sharing their home. She has always been a wonderful cook but all of a sudden seems to have lost her way. She was looking for some new recipes and some old classics in some of my cookbooks this weekend. So, of course, I mentioned your Dining on a Dime cookbook and showed her my copy. She loved the recipes that made her think of our childhood so as soon as I can, I will order a copy for her Christmas gift. I know she will love this Cherry Chocolate cake and can’t wait to send your web address to her so she can begin to see all the goodies you share with us.
Jill, brisket isn’t difficult to make is it? I’m afraid of messing it up. It won’t get dried out in the crock pot will it? I had some brisket recently and it was wonderful but they bought it from sams club already cooked. I see the big slabs of brisket in the store and want to buy it but I’d hate to spend that much money and mess it up. any pointers would be helpful. thank you.
No you really can’t mess it up any more then a roast. I Ias like you and always afraid of it because I had never made one until a friend I meant had it all the time. This recipe with the cranberry sauce is especially easy and it is almost impossible to dry out anything in a crock pot. I would say buy the smallest one you can find to experiment with if you are really afraid. It really is just like a roast. The main thing with brisket is you need to marinate it over night to help with tenderness or as in this recipe slow cook it for tenderness.
I have a really yummy recipe too that your rub in spices and liquid smoke and let it set over night then really slow cook it and serve with a special bar b que sauce but like I said this recipe is so much easier.
Jill and Tawra,
This recipe (for brisket, with cranberry, etc) sounded so good yesterday, that I went to the store and bought a brisket. They are not always available, but the store I went to had a butcher, and he told me about the ones they sometimes have in the back: a brisket of up to 15 lbs(!), “vacuum-wrapped”, very fresh, and very good price per pound. So I bought a 13 pound brisket! Got home, cut it up into four pieces, and froze three. I’ve cooked corned beef, and I have eaten brisket but never made one. Wow. Your recipe is fabulous!! I’ll be making that a few more times this winter. Thank you for the recipe and for the many other recipes and information!!
Jill, I know this will sound like a dumb question but what is “cut across the grain?” Whenever I take a roast out of the crockpot, it is difficult to cut in slices because it is so tender it falls apart. The only roast I have been able to cut in slices is a rump roast but still did not know what “cut across the grain” meant. Am if cutting with the lines (for want of a better word) going in the same direction as I am cutting or do I cut perpendicular to them?
Not a dumb question at all. Most meats you can see the long lines running across the the top of the meat. You cut perpendicular to those lines. You are cutting those long strings of meat into smaller pieces to make them easier to chew. If I can’t tell where the grain is on the meat I will just slice a little piece off and eat it to test and see if it is easy to chew and I know I have done it right. I love this testing part. :) I am like you though my meat is usually so tender from slow cooking it that it falls apart before I even get a chance to cut it so I rarely cut meat at all.
Not sure it this makes sense. If I didn’t explain it well enough holler and I will try to explain it differently.
Thanks, Jill. Now I get it. Even on cooking shows, they always say, “cut across the grain” but don’t explain. It makes sense because some meat is really chewy and the long strands are difficult to eat.
Glad to know that made sense. I started to use the example of the anatomy chart that hangs in doctors office that shows our muscles and tissue running down our arms and legs and how you would need to cut across them to shorten them but I thought that would be to gross. But listen to me duhh I used it anyway. :)
The chocolate covered cherry cake is good. Be sure that readers know that the cake mix is used dry with only the ingredients listed. I gave this recipe to a friend and she made the cake like the box says and then added the cherries, almond extract and the extra eggs. Did not work well. I did not realize it would be hard to understand.
I found out recently that if you make pumpkin pie from scratch, you can freeze it for a later date, with excellent results. Just make sure the pie is properly cooked, thoroughly cooled and wrapped well. Thaw when ready to use. I will taste like you baked it that same day. I always wondered if you could do this, but when my kids were home, there was never enough pie to freeze and try it out. Now as empty nesters, extra pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving can be frozen for Christmas. Great to know, if you want to make pumpkin pie ahead of time.