Beef Brisket

Beef Brisket

Take one beef brisket that has been trimmed by the butcher and place it in a food saver bag or ziptop bag of your choice.  Now, here is where it gets tricky.  If this were my daddy’s brisket, the only marinade he would ever put on it would be Claude’s, maybe Dale’s, but most likely Claude’s.  Depending on where you live in the country, will determine what is available.  Now for this brisket, since I couldn’t remember what store I had seen the Claude’s sauce, I bought our favorite meat marinade for every kind of meat, Stubb’s™!!  I love the pork, chicken, and beef varieties.  So I got the beef, two bottles, and poured it over the brisket.  I let it sit for two days and rotated it once a day.  On Saturday morning around 11, knowing that we wanted to eat at about 5 or 6 that evening, I took that brisket out of the marinade and placed it in a 9×13 glass pan, fatty side up and covered the pan with foil.  I set the oven to 300 degrees and popped it in.  I didn’t open that oven until 4:30 that night.  Now if you want to cook it lower and slower, please do.  Cook it for 7 hours at 250 degrees.  Either way, you are going to indulge in the best brisket that you have ever had.  Bean made smashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli and we had some King’s Hawaiian Rolls.  We didn’t even have to put any sauce on that brisket, it was moist and wonderful.

Brisket  Leftovers

Leftover brisket, cubed hash brown potatoes, grilled onions, shredded cheese, and flour tortillas.  Cube about 1/2 of the leftover brisket add brown the potatoes according to the package directions,  transfer them to a bowl and grill the sliced onion in the hot pan, remove them to a bowl and add the brisket to the hot pan, along with some of the pan juice.  Heat up the tortillas and pile in the meat, potatoes, and onions.  Top with cheese and sour cream.  If you want salsa or green Chile, add that too.  These are amazing burritos.

Hair

It’s always amazed me how different my girl’s hair is.

Bean was born bald, shiny bald.  Then she got peach fuzz, Matthew even called her “Peach” for a long time.  And yet, Bean is the nickname that stuck…hmmm, that is rather odd.  Anyway, Bean’s hair took forever to grow in, it’s always taken forever to grow out from a cut too.  It was thin, wouldn’t hold a curl, and has always been prone to oiliness.  Since she chopped it all off, going from chin length to 1/4″ inch all over, and now to an adorable pixie much like mine, her hair is thick and often unruly unless tamed with “product”.

Berry was also born bald, but more peach fuzz bald and her hair, when it finally started coming in, grew like ironweed in NM.  It grew fast, thick, and strong.  Not only did she have a lot of hair, but each strand was thick, unbreakable.  When prepubescent started kicking in her hair started getting a little oily.  However, it hasn’t slowed down on its rapid growth, making her cute bob hard for upkeep.

Last night, after Berry’s shower, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the big round brush and my hair dryer to give it a going over.  I had let it air dry for an hour and it still took 30 minutes to dry it with the blow dryer.  But each time I finished a section I couldn’t help but run my hand over it and through it.  It’s so silky and soft.  Her hair is so strong and it’s beautiful.  It’s a rich, dark, brown with strands of gold and red running through it all.  I don’t know that I will ever let her cut hers off like Bean and I have ours.  It really has to stay around the chin to shoulder length bob that she has, otherwise it’s a little uncontrollable, but I couldn’t bear to have her cut it all off.

I can’t wait for Bean’s hair to get back to its natural color.  Over the summer she used Sun-In and it has a lot more gold than normal.  Usually it’s much darker brown with those same gold and red highlights running through.  Much darker than mine or Berry’s.  More like her daddy’s used to be before the white and silver took over.  As much as I can’t think of Berry’s hair being short, I can’t think of Bean’s being long.  Her hair epitomizes her personality and spunk, her personality shines from that crown of hair.  Her beautiful face is showcased because there is no hair to hide it.

I never really thought about our hair fitting our personalities so well, but it does.  People get a sense of who we are just by looking at our hair.  I love looking at hair.  Today I got offended because I heard some hair person on TV say that all women SHOULD have their hair colored.  I don’t think we all need it, but we may all choose to have it at some point.  Right now I am anti color for myself.  I have a lot of silver strands coming in and I am really thinking about just letting them come in.  I always loved my mama’s hair, black with silver and white.  I think I’m old enough to handle some gray.

Hair, who knew there was so much wrapped up in it.