November 28, 2006

How Sweet it is

I posted last week about my mother-in-laws turkey and how wonderfully delicious it was. Well, this Thanksgiving she didn’t cook her famous turkey, instead she made a traditional Spanish meal.

Josefa and I had talked a couple of months ago about traditional Spanish holiday meals and she mentioned to me a very simple recipe that she hadn’t cooked in quite awhile. You bake beef, pork and chicken together in a pan. As she talked about how delicious this meal was I mentioned that we should do that for the holidays.

When my husband and I arrived in Mt. Vernon at their home on the 22nd, I was surprised, for she was preparing this very meal. This recipe is so easy almost fool-proof.

McConnell Holiday Meal
By Josefa McConnell
The size of your gathering well determine the size of meats your purchase.

1 beef roast or brisket
1 large chicken or small turkey
1 whole ham

Place in a large roasting pan, with the poultry in the middle.

Add 2 cups of chicken stock and sprinkle all meat with garlic powder. Be sure to cover entire meat heavily with the garlic powder. Cover tightly with alumni foil and bake at a very low temperature, 200 degrees.

Josefa puts the meat in the oven around 11 pm or Midnight and takes it out about 7 pm. She then lets it sits completely covered all morning, to let the juices really set in.

This meal is outrageously delicious! The next morning the smell in the house was almost too much to bear. The meat was so tender it fell apart and the taste was out of this world. She adds no salt because the meats take the flavors of the other meats as they cook. The ham provides the salt flavoring for everything.

I went to my parent’s house bragging about the meal Josefa had cooked and we may try it for my family’s Christmas.

(On a side note: I submitted a couple of my own recipes to Paula Deen a week ago. Yesterday in the mail was a hand written envelope and letter thanking me for my recipes. And, informing me that Michael, who is Paula’s husband, was ready to be the official taste tester. Now, I’m sure it wasn’t Paula herself that wrote the letter to me, but it was handwritten, and to me that still means a lot. Also, the timing in which I received a response back impressed me. Thanks Paula!)

3 comments:

Casey Galatos said...

Well holidays are approaching and most of us trying out recipes...there are some of our old favorites and then some of us do try out new stuff every year....well if you're looking for some new and interesting recipes for the holidays then do drop by my Holiday Blog sometime for all the wonderful resources....so visit it soon and have a great time during the holidays!!!!

Kel said...

Thanks for the recipe!

I'd like to try this and want to confirm the baking time - 20 hours?

Lane said...

Kel,
You need to put the dish in right before you go to bed at a temp of 275 degrees, so it cooks slow.

The time all depends on the size of meat you are cooking. So if you have three meats that are about 3 pounds each, cook all night. I get up usually at 5:30 am to check where the meat is at.