Beef shank
Marinara sauce (homemade or store bought)
Rigatoni noodles
Parmesan cheese

Put a package of shank meat in the crockpot in the morning and cover it with marinara sauce. Cook on low all day or until the meat falls apart. This is delicious over rigatoni noodles with Parmesan and a salad on the side. It's so easy and so good!

Laura E.
Dry Ridge, Ky

4-5 lb beef brisket
Salt, pepper and paprika
1 cup water (add more if brisket is bigger)
1 or 2 onions sliced and put on top of meat

Rub salt, pepper and paprika on both sides. Pour water around it.

Seal tightly with foil.

Bake at 275 degrees for 5 hours or 250 degrees for 1 hour per pound or until it reaches your desired degree of tenderness.

Refrigerate overnight. Take the fat off the top and discard. Make gravy. Slice meat thinly against the grain and put back in the pan. Pour gravy over meat and heat.

Gravy:
3 cups beef broth (from brisket)
1 cup water mixed with 3 T corn starch
Cook until thickened. Pour over brisket.

This works great as a make ahead meal by cooking the brisket a couple of days ahead and letting it set in the broth in the frig. The gravy is best quality when made the day of serving. This is an extremely easy and impressive entree.

Note: An option is to use Lipton onion soup mix (but go light on the salt). Sprinkle ½ packet in the pan, lay brisket on top, sprinkle the rest of the soup mix on top of meat.

Becky Purcell

5 lbs. bare beef bones
1 bunch of Carrots, unpeeled and chopped
3 yellow onions, unpeeled and chopped
1 head of Celery, chopped
5 quarts of water

Roast the bones uncovered at 400 degrees for 2 hours. They should be toasty brown but not black. Put the roasted bones in a soup pot and add 1 quart of water for each pound of bones. Chop but leave the peel and tops on the vegetables.

Bring everything to a heavy simmer uncovered and cook for 12 hours. Adding water may be needed. Do not salt. Strain the stock and store in the refrigerator. Do not skim fat as this will seal the stock and keep it fresh for several days. If you don't want to watch the pot all day you can bring it to a heavy simmer, cover the pot and put it in a 225 degree oven over night.

Becky's Note:
If you don't have 5 lbs of bones, adapt the vegetables to the amount. We have always done the last step on the stove because we have just planned to be around home when making it. This will make your house smell so good you will want to eat the air.

The next day or so I skim fat and measure it into amounts I normally use, put in zip lock freezer bags, label and freeze.

I have an ice cube tray I use especially for broth when I want to freeze small amounts to drop into things but mostly do this with chicken broth. I put the cubes in freezer bags and they work great.

If I need more broth for beef vegetable soup or need more broth for gravy than I have from my meat I just add this. I don't salt it so I can adjust the salt as needed depending on the recipe.

Becky Purcell