Celery Seed Brisket

This is another recipe from the latest Simple & Delicious. I always like to make roasts in the crock pot, but it makes a ton of food and a ton of leftovers. But Steve's parents are here from Florida, so I thought this would be good to make for dinner since it would feed a crowd. It's supposed to be brisket, but they didn't have brisket at Walmart, and I just googled "brisket" to find out that it's a tough cut of meat with a lot of connective tissue that must be properly tenderized, usually by slow-cooking, to make it taste good. So maybe it's usually cheaper? Also this is the cut of beef people usually "corn" for corned beef. I just bought the cut of roast that Walmart had. You can't really mess up meat in a crock pot anyway.

Celery Seed Brisket
1 fresh beef brisket (3-4 lbs)
1 can (28 oz) Italian crushed tomatoes (they didn't have this at Walmart either, so I bought garlic seasoned ones and left out the garlic later in the recipe)
1 large red onion, chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp Liquid Smoke
4 tsp cornstarch
3 tbsp cold water

Cut brisket in half; place in 5 qt slow cooker. Combine tomatoes, onion, vinegar, worcestershire sauce, garlic, brown sugar, celery seed, pepper, salt, cumin, and Liquid Smoke in a bowl. Pour over beef. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours or until meat is tender.

Remove meat to serving platter; keep warm. In a large saucepan, combine cornstarch and water until smooth. Gradually stir in 4 cups cooking liquid. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Slice brisket across the grain; serve with gravy.

Of course this was very easy to throw in the crock pot. I love recipes for the crock pot where you don't have to saute vegetables or brown meat first. Because usually if I'm crock potting, I have to put it in first thing in the morning, when I am (studies and evidence conclusively show) not at my best. So I liked the easiness of the recipe. It also, of course, made the kitchen smell great all day. It also tasted fabulous and the beef was very tender. One thing I didn't do was thicken the cooking juices...I always make a huge mess when I do that, so I just put them on the table in their unthickened form. It was still pretty thick and it tasted great on the meat and potatoes. I made this a few days ago and just haven't posted the recipe, but tonight we had the leftovers of it and the kids were SO excited to eat this again! So we fed 11 people the first time around and then 5 people the leftovers. We had it with mashed potatoes, carrots, and homemade bread. Also these awesome bread and butter pickles that Steve's cousin made. They were so good it almost makes me want to make pickles. So I am definitely keeping this recipe!