More "playing" in the kitchen!

After we butchered our bull a couple weeks ago (almost) I put some of the brisket in a brine to make my own homemade corned beef brisket. I've never done that before and had to go looking for a recipe, but it wasn't hard to find one online. I found one that didn't use whatever they use to make the meat stay red...as I didn't have any of that and am never sure how good it is for you anyway, so don't mind not using it.

I left the brisket in the brine for a week, then cooked it up this weekend. Yum! It really turned out quite tasty, and while I've not had the store bought stuff much, so can't tell you if it tasted like those you can buy in the store DH said he thought it did...and even if it didn't, it was really good!

We had some left, so I made my own version of corned beef hash (actually I'd call it a corned beef breakfast skillet myself) for breakfast this morning. It made for a bigger breakfast than we usually have but wow...makes me wish we had MORE! LOL I actually do have a little left, just not as much as I used this morning. Since the meat isn't red, its not real easy to pick out but it's in there. I caramelized an onion, then took a jar of the potatoes I canned this last summer and sliced them then browned them...then put the meat in to heat up. Mixed everything together, made sure it was hot and had some with our farm fresh eggs and homemade banana bread.

It's the WONDERFUL breakfast pictured above!  And yes I ate to much!  LOL

I'm not sure what I'll be making this week, but hopefully I get around to doing something...guess it depends on how I feel and how much time I can spend playing.  I'm extremely tired again today for some reason...so haven't felt like starting much yet today.  May just go play in my soap room as there are a few things I need to do down there too.

One of these days, since we are back in milk I need to make some mozzarella cheese.  Our newest neighbor called and wants to come help when I do it next time, cause she wants to learn how to herself, so...guess I need to get back on the cheese wagon and get started using our milk.  LOL  The chickens and neighbors have been happy that I haven't been using it all lately, but...it would be nice to have some fresh cheese too, so sometime in the next week or two I'll have to do that.  I have however, been using our cream for butter and cream cheese!

One of these days I'm going to make a real "baked" cheese cake with my homemade cream cheese...just haven't had time AND had the cream to do it with yet...but I'm thinking this winter is the perfect time since I should have time AND cream! :-))

Anyway, off to find something useful to do with my day now I guess...even though I just want to curl up and take a nap under a nice warm blanket.  We had a couple nice warm days again, and now it's back to being cold.  Hope everyone is staying warm out there (but not TO warm for those of you in summer now!).