What’s for Dinner? Brisket & Brie Soft Tacos with BBQ Sauce and Mango Chutney

Holy Cow, this was soooooo good! Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take a picture until we had scarfed it all down, but this is pretty close.

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It was super quick and easy to make (less than 10 minutes total work tonight), but it does require some advance planning. I like this as part of “Save-a-step cooking” which is where you plan the leftovers as part of another meal. So, last night we made a brisket (slow cooked in a Dutch oven at 205 degrees for seven or eight hours, marinated and cooked in red wine – YUM!). And tonight, we used the leftover brisket for these tacos. Another thing you need to have in advance is the Mango Chutney. It’s a lacto-fermented recipe from Nourishing Traditions and it’s one of my favorite things!

So, you have to have mango salsa, brie, BBQ sauce, and leftover brisket. As long as you have these things, then it’s just an issue of assembly and it takes just a few minutes to make dinner.

Here’s the recipe:

Brie Soft Tacos with BBQ Sauce and Mango Chutney

Tacos loaded with shredded brisket, brie, BBQ sauce, and lacto-fermented mango chutney.

Ingredients

  • leftover brisket (we love it slow cooked 205 degrees for 7 or 8 hrs, marinated and cooked in red white, garlic, salt and pepper)
  • your fav Barbecue Sauce (we love the Sassy recipe from the Weber’s Real Grilling cookbook)
  • Lacto-fermented mango chutney (from Nourishing Traditions)
  • Tortillas (taco-size)
  • 8 oz brie, thinly sliced
  • butter, to warm up the tortillas

Instructions

  1. To assemble the tacos: Heat a griddle or large pan over medium-high.
  2. Heat up the brisket, then transfer to a bowl.
  3. Add some butter to the pan. Lay out the tortillas in the pan. Once warm, add the brie slices in a line down the middle.
  4. Then add brisket, BBQ sauce, and the mango chutney (all down the middle). The bottom should be a tiny bit browned and crispy.
  5. Fold over and place on a plate in a warmed oven while you make the rest.
  6. Sit down with your family while they sing your praises for this most delicious dinner!

I HIGHLY recommend you try this. If you do, leave me a comment and let me know how it goes.

What’s for dinner? Butternut Curry Bisque

This is a family favorite. I like to make this in my Dutch oven (in bulk), serve it for dinner, then freeze the rest in dinner-sized portions for later or for giving away. It freezes really well and stores great in gallon-sized freezer ziploc bags (laid out flat while freezing-then you can put multiple bags of different soups on their sides in a row for compact storage).

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FYI, these amounts are really just a starting point – I just put in whatever I feel like at the time =)

2 – 2.5 lb butternut squash
2 Tbsp butter (or more!)
2 carrots, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
5-6 cups homemade chicken stock
1.5 tsp curry powder
pinch nutmeg
pinch ground ginger
yogurt for garnish

Cut the squashes into halves and roast in the oven – then scoop out and set aside. Be sure to reserve the seeds (soak in salt water, then roast – yummy!). Melt the butter in your Dutch oven or any soup pot; add the carrots, onion, and celery, ; saute until soft. Stir in the squash and potatoes. Add the stock; bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for 40 minutes. Add curry, nutmeg and ginger. Puree with stick blender (or in batches in a blender). Return to saucepan; add more soup if necessary to thin and salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with a large dallop of yogurt! YUMMY!

What’s for Breakfast? Quesadillas with Mango Chutney!!

OK folks, the truth is that I don’t really “do” breakfast. After six years of marriage we’ve established a routine where Derm Dad either makes breakfast (and it’s always awesome when he does) or we don’t have anything (other than self-serve scrounging around for something super fast as we run out the door). So today, when Derm Dad asked me to handle breakfast (he’s furiously studying for his boards in about two weeks!!!), I tried something new AND it was super easy AND it was delicious!!! So now I am sharing this awesomeness with you, people of the internet!

Easy Breakfast Quesadillas with Mango Chutney

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(sorry for the mostly eaten pic. It was so delicious, I had scarfed most of it down before it occurred to me to take a picture)

Ingredients: tortillas, eggs, cheese, and lacto-fermented mango chutney

So, this is not something you can make on the spur of the moment unless you have mango chutney already made (it takes two days to ferment). So start a batch right away! It’s great on anything and it is soooo good for you!

I buy tortillas (sprouted are best if you have any trouble digesting unsoaked & unsprouted grain, and almost everybody does!) and throw the whole bag in the freezer. Then, when we want to use some I pull out the bag and in a few minutes the outer few are thawed enough to separate easily. That way you can always have tortillas on hand.

Eggs should be pastured, obviously. If all you can get is from the store, fine, they’re still very good for you, but pastured eggs are about 10 times more nutritious.

I used Parmesan cheese, because I had a few pieces already cut from the wedge (leftover from last night’s soup), but any cheese would be fine here.

And, lastly, you’ll need a batch of Mango Chutney, which is in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook and already described and in a video blog HERE. It’s my absolute favorite way to eat mango. In fact, I like to ferment almost all of my fruit. For this batch, I used cilantro from my very own garden! I left out the jalapeno pepper and we like it even better!

So, I just made some scrambled eggs (2 or 3 eggs with the whites and 3 or 4 yolks only), topped them with lots of cheese, fried the tortillas in a bit of Spring butter, then put a pile of eggs and cheese into the tortilla and folded it in half. I put a bunch of mango chutney on the top of the whole thing (regular salsa would be good here too).  And viola! DELISH!!

 

Be sure to check out more of my recipes HERE.

What’s for dinner? Herbed Tomato Soup

This was a high-fives all-around dinner! In fact, this is Kent’s favorite soup of all time.

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Herbed Tomato Soup

(This is modified from a recipe in Real Simple magazine)

6-8 Tablespoons Spring Butter (from grass-fed cows) or more – this is a super-food

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

12 large garlic cloves

2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 Tablespoons coarsely chopped celery leaves

1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon coarse Celtic sea salt (I just eye-balled it in the palm of my hand and added more to taste)

6 pounds organic tomatoes, chopped

about 2 cups homemade chicken stock (reduced gives more flavor)

1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves (from the garden)

Parmasan cheese (the good stuff) I find this cheapest at Trader Joe’s. I stock up when I go since good Parm can be kept in the freezer, but DO NOT buy pre-shredded cheese because they use some chemicals to keep the cheese from clumping — just shred your own at home.

 

Saute first six ingredients for at least five minutes (Kent doesn’t like the onions to taste raw at all, so we make sure they are fully cooked). Then, stir in tomatoes, and stock; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer until tomatoes are soft and mixture is slightly reduced, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in basil; cook until fragrant, about five minutes. Garnish with a lot of Parmesan cheese at the table – the good stuff.

We served the soup with a simple flatbread (same baggie of pizza dough that we make in bulk, store in freezer, and thaw the night before) infused with about 12 cloves of crushed garlic. After grilling, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with some coarse Celtic sea salt, and shower with a lot of Parmesan cheese).

Start to finish, this meal takes about 30 minutes (assuming you already have homemade chicken stock, which can be stored in the freezer) and it tastes so gourmet! YUM!!!

What’s for Dinner? Chips & Grassfed Beefy Queso Dip – YUM!

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This was soooo GOOD!

I took a class this weekend that was all day Saturday and all day Sunday. I completely forgot about dinner Sunday night and everyone was starved and rummaging around for food, but we had no leftovers ready to go. I needed something lightning fast and super easy (because my brain was fried). Then I had a vision for Beefy Queso Dip with Chips!!! I took a pound of ground beef out of the freezer and plopped it into the cast iron pan (still frozen solid). As soon a piece thawed enough to separate it from the frozen block, I just put it into a bowl to keep it from overcooking while the rest thawed — then when it was mostly all thawed, we put everything back in to the pan. We added some cheddar cheese, about half a can of diced fire roasted tomatoes (using as much juice as you need to get the right consistency), some grilled onions we had in the fridge (always a good thing to have extra of), a small amount of chili powder (it is easy for me to overdo this one!), plenty of Celtic sea salt, and plenty of my favorite 21 Seasoning Salute from Trader Joe’s. We served the dip right out of the skillet at the table with our non-GMO Blue Corn chips. Super fast (maybe 10 minutes start to finish) and super good! Of course we had Kent’s famous custard for dessert.

What’s For Dinner? Nourishing Traditions French Onion Soup WOW!

I know I sound like a broken record over here, but I’m serious – this was a high-fives-all-around meal!!! Kent said, “This is what French Onion Soup is supposed to taste like.” Then he talked about driving to Vermont as a child and eating French Onion Soup in a quaint little tavern on the way home. I love a meal that is super nourishing, evokes pleasant memories from your childhood, and even makes new memories at the same time. It’s THAT good!

Start with homemade broth

I make a batch of broth about once a week! A good homemade bone broth is THE non-negotiable ingredient in any good soup, IMHO. The Healthy Home Economist has a great video on making homemade broth here.

I order whole chickens, chicken carcasses, chicken heads and feet (which is where you get rich gelatin – a better-absorbed source of glucosamine and chondroitin than a supplement), and beef soup bones all from our farmer who raises his animals on pasture, which means they eat food that makes them clean and healthy with no added hormones or antibiotics. Last week, I don’t know why, but I mixed chicken and beef bones together in the crock pot. I also had some leek tops in the freezer that I had saved for the next time I made broth. I added my usual carrots, celery, and onion to the leek tops and let it simmer on low for a few days (maybe three). I also added some egg shells (for bioavailable calcium). The broth was a deep dark brown and soooooo rich! I thought it would be perfect for a French Onion Soup. After I strained the bits out, I put it the liquid broth in glass jars in the fridge and forgot about it. Did I mention things get crazy fast over here? A few days later, Kent said he was dreaming about having French Onion Soup and did we have any onions? I said, I have the perfect broth already made. Sidenote: I like to keep broth ready to go in the fridge (enough for a large batch of soup) at all times, but sometimes I freeze it in large yogurt containers (they pop out easily because there is no lip at the top of the plastic containers). This would have been just as easy to make from frozen broth, if you don’t happen to have any in the fridge. Also, when I pulled the stock out of the fridge, it was a thin liquid, not a jelly consistency, so I added two tablespoons of bovine gelatin (I bought mine here).

I mostly followed the Nourishing Traditions recipe, except that I used yellow onions instead of red, and I didn’t have any cognac. According to the recipe, you slice 4-5 onions (I used 4, but 5 would have been even better – they cook down A LOT!) and add to four tablespoons of butter in the cast iron pan on the lowest possible heat for two hours! Then raise the heat and cook for a few more minutes, stirring constantly – until the onions turn brown but are not burned. Then you add two quarts of broth/stock, 1/2 cup red wine, 1/2 cup cognac (I didn’t). Then bring to a rapid boil and skim off any foam that rises to the top. Then add two tablespoons arrowroot powder mixed with two tablespoons water (I shake it up in a mason jar with the lid on tight).

We put slices of sourdough bread in the bowls and ladled the soup on top of that. Then we put a thick layer of raw Swiss cheese (Baby Swiss from our farmer) and put it under the broiler for a minute or two until the cheese is nice and brown, but stay close because it’ll burn fast!

And then enjoy!!!

And then come back here and tell me how good it was in the comments =)

What’s For Dinner? Grass-fed BBQ Brisket with Potatoes and Kraut – Yumsky!

Yumsky!

I think I am on a roll with dinner lately because this one’s another high-fives-all-around meal!!!

I baked this grass fed beef brisket in my Dutch Oven (the tight-fighting lid being a critical component) on 300 degrees for a few hours today and ohmygoodness, was it good. We were worried about losing power, so we thought we’d cook a hunk of meat in a vessel that retains heat (thus, the Dutch Oven). I used the recipe from Wellness Mama here. Basically, you pierce the roast on all sides with a knife (she said every 1/2 inch, but I probably did it a lot more than that) to physically tenderize the meat. Then you add liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce and marinate in the fridge for a few days. The recipe said to cook it for 8-10 hours, but this brisket was kinda puny, so it was done after about four hours. I just pulled it out of the oven when it was done and then reheated it at 200 degrees right before dinner. And around the time I was reheating it, I realized we had no veggies, and Kent suggested we use up some potatoes. So, I just cut about six CSA potatoes into very small pieces (to cook faster) and quickly sauteed them with butter on the stove since I didn’t want to delay dinner. Once the potatoes were done I just dumped them in the Dutch Oven in top of the roast while we made a salad and set the table. By the time we served it, the potatoes had soaked up the sauce and it was delish!! We served it with some of Kent’s homemade BBQ sauce and the saurkraut we’re keeping out until the storm passes – in case we lose power and have to keep the fridge closed for a while. If you make this, you won’t be sorry – I promise!