Brisket Tacos/Quesadillas

I am really missing my dinner group over here. It has reminded me what a chore it is to come up with what is for dinner Every. Single. Day! Well, one of the best dinners to come from my dinner group was a version of THIS recipe for Brisket Tacos that my friend Emily Hoopes made one week. I loved them and asked for the recipe. She directed me to the link for the recipe.

I decided to make them again last week. But here is the beautiful discovery I made-- This can be a meal made from leftovers of another of my favorite meals! I love it when that happens.

So last week I took dinner to one of Jon's co-workers family. The wife recently had back surgery. I decided to make french dip sandwiches. Normally I make these after a recipe Bari Earl gave me. (Her daughter Emily is one of my best friends and writes and amazing food and crafty type blog ReMarkable Home.)

This recipe is awesome and makes a ton of food.

French Dip Sandwiches
Basically you buy a beef roast. You can get whatever is on sale. I got top round roast this time. I got 2 so about 5 lbs.
Normally you would put the meat in your crockpot, cover with water and put in 2-4 packs of Dry Italian Salad Dressing Seasoning packets and the same amount of Dry Lipton Onion Soup packets.
This time I did 2 of each kind of seasoning packet. (You can use more if you like the meat more flavored or you have more meat)
Then instead of water I poured in a 16 oz bottle of Dr. Pepper. Then I added enough water to cover the meat.
Next I cooked the meat on low in my crock pot for 8 hours.
I then shreded the meat with forks, removing any particularly fatty portions.
I then cooked another 2 hours on low.

I caramelized some onions and got some crusty rolls and sliced cheese.
Add a little spicy mustard and there is you french dip sandwich. Only I don't actually dip it. The juice it is sitting in is enough for me.
This is also great on Costco's pretzel rolls.

After I made this meal, I had lots of my beef left over. I made sandwiches for lunch the next couple of days and then last night I used the beef to make these tacos.
I had the cheese called for and made the Mango barbecue sauce as directed in the recipe except that I didn't have a yellow onion so I used a red one instead. And I accidentally dumped the whole 9 oz bottle of mango chutney in the mix and decided to leave it that way.

The result was OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD! Okay I know I am being a bit dramatic and in all fairness I was fasting for a dear friend of mine yesterday. (Fasting means to go without food or drink for two meals or 24 hours. It is something we Mormons do once a month and donate the money we would have used to eat to the poor. We also do it to increase spiritual awareness, self mastery, and give greater emphasis and power to our prayers. See more HERE about fasting.) And I will grant that every thing tastes better when eaten after fasting.

But when Jon came home from doing a visit he tried one and was amazed too. He had not been fasting so it made me a bit more sure that this really was THAT good. And I just had another one of the leftover tacos for breakfast (is that legal?) and, yes, it is that good.

I would put a photo up but I am not so great with the whole food photography thing and I don't want to steal the photos from Shawda. But you can see what they look like on her blog HERE.

Put it on your menu this week. Two yummy meals out of one crock pot of beef. What could be better?