Pretty Southern

"BBQ" Spice Blend

Personal
Yield:  Varies
Time:  5 minutes

Minced garlic (4 cloves for small batch)
Salt & pepper (to taste)
Garlic powder (Medium)
Paprika (Medium-heavy)
Chili powder (Heavy)
Ginger (Light)
Nutmeg (Light)
Cardamom (Very light)
Cinnamon (Very light)
Light brown sugar (Light-medium)

Blend in bowl or plastic bag and store until ready to use.

Braised Beef Brisket

Claire Robinson
Yield:  "6" servings
Time:  12 hours, 4 hours

1 (6 pound) beef brisket
1/2 cup "BBQ" spice blend
1 cup cold beef broth

Braise Mixture
3 cups hot beef broth
1 tbsp coffee grounds
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
Pepper to taste
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Rub brisket with spice blend & marinate in refrigerator at least 12 hours.
Heat oven to 350°.  Put brisket in roasting pan, fatty side up; add cold beef broth and roast uncovered, 1 hour.  Add braise mixture; cover & braise 3 hours or until internal temperature of 185°.  Let rest and serve with rolls (follows).

Easy Rolls

Paula Deen
Yield:  24 rolls
Time:  22-34 minutes

4 cups flour
2 tsps salt
6 tsps baking powder
2 cups milk
4 tbsps sugar
8 tbsps mayonnaise

Butter Mixture
1/2 stick butter, melted
Salt, pepper, & rosemary, to taste

Heat oven to 350°.  Butter 2 12-cup muffin tins.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and milk.  Add sugar and mayonnaise, stirring to combine.  Spoon batter into tins, filling about 1/2-3/4 of the way full.  Brush with butter mixture & bake 15 minutes.  If rolls are not brown/golden on top, give an additional 12 minutes.

Apple Cinnamon Bread

Facebook:  Links to Allrecipes
Yield:  1 loaf
Time:  50-62 minutes

Apple Mixture
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled & chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup light brown sugar
Pinch salt

Butter Mixture
1 stick butter, softened
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract

Flour Mixture
1 1/2 cups flour
1 3/4 tsps baking powder
Pinch salt

1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 350°.  Butter & flour loaf pan.
Mix the butter mixture into the flour mixture.  Add milk and stir until smooth.  Add half the batter to the loaf pan and smooth out.  Add half apple mixture and spread as evenly as possible.  Repeat layers.  Bake 40-52 minutes.

More Info

"BBQ" Spice Blend

I know that the comments in the parentheses next to the ingredients is probably confusing, but I didn't measure when I made my spice blend.  I just threw the ingredients into a bowl and mixed them up, then put them on the brisket and rubbed it down.  Basically, do this to your own taste.  I just put the comments there to let you know what there was more of in the recipe as compared to the other ingredients.  I will say this, though; if you use the cinnamon, as I did, make sure to just use a tiny sprinkle of it.  Cinnamon is a pretty strong flavor, and even a tiny sprinkle will still give it a decent presence.

Braised Beef Brisket

Okay, lets start with this; I used the flat cut of the brisket for this recipe.  Also, my flat cut was probably more like 9 lbs or so (the 1/2 cup spice blend was still plenty).  The original recipe?  It said to trim the fat on the brisket....  I, uhm...forgot to do that.  Didn't make a huge difference, except that there was a large amount of rendered fat in the pan when it was done.  Also, the original recipe said to remove the brisket to let it rest and put the pan on the stove and turn it on to reduce/thicken the drippings down into a sauce, skimming off the fat.  The idea of the original recipe was to use the rolls and sauce and brisket to make sandwiches.  I forgot about reducing the sauce, though.  Basically, we had the brisket as a roast with dinner rolls, and it was good.
Also, the braise mixture?  It does need to be warm.  It's not a good idea to put cold liquid on hot meat, especially when the fat side is up.  It'll basically make the meat seize back up, and that isn't what you want at all.
The original recipe (for the braise mixture) called for dark brown sugar, finely ground coffee, and did not include worcestershire sauce.  I wasn't about to go out and buy dark brown sugar, when I had light brown sugar in the cabinet.  I also used the regular ground coffee we had (not a big deal, if you ask me).  And the worcestershire sauce...I don't know why I added it, but the brisket was good, so...I guess it was a good idea.
The original recipe didn't call for beef broth, by the way.  It said water.  But I wanted more flavor than that.  So I used "beef broth."  ...Meaning I put four cups of water on the stove, brought it to a simmer with a bay leaf in it, and added five packets of beef ramen seasoning, then separated out the one cup from the three cups and refrigerated it to make it cold.
Actually, I refrigerated the braise mixture, too, because I made it a day in advance.  When it was time to put it on the brisket, I popped open a corner of the container lid and put it in the microwave for about 3 minutes, then poured it over the brisket and covered with aluminum foil.
Oh, and I took the brisket out of the refrigerator two hours before I put it in the oven and let it come to room temperature.  Because, as I've said before, I prefer my meats at room temperature when I cook them.
As for the cook time, after adding the braise mixture, you're supposed to cook an additional 3 hours.  And you can do that, sure...but I checked my brisket at 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it was done.  Which was good, because my step brother was pretty darn hungry (he'd just gotten off work).

Easy Rolls

This is doubled from the original recipe.  Also, the original recipe called for self rising flour.  I just looked up the substitution for self rising flour on the internet (because I only had all purpose flour, and I wasn't about to go out and buy extra ingredients).  Now, you can add the salt and baking powder to the flour, but what I did was put the salt and baking powder into the cup measure, then poured the flour (carefully) into the cup measure until it was full and added it to the bowl.  Then I measured out the rest of the flour normally.
You could probably use a stand mixer with a dough hook to mix this together, but I didn't.  I did it by hand.  And I know the recipe says to stir in the sugar and mayonnaise, but really, you kinda need to use your stirring utensil to sort of cut it in, because the flour and milk become a really thick mixture.
Also, I don't have a pastry brush, so I just used a spoon to sort of rub the melted butter mixture on top of the roll batter.
Now, the original recipe says that the rolls take 15 minutes to bake.  And maybe they do if you make the batter right before you bake it.  But I made it a day ahead and had it in the refrigerator until right before I baked it, so that's probably why mine took 27 minutes to bake.  Then again, the reviews on Food Network's website for this recipe indicated that these rolls were taking about half an hour for most people when they baked them.  So...after 15 minutes, kind of keep an eye on them.  Honestly, when I saw they weren't done, I guessed 12 minutes and put them back on, and they came out perfect and beautiful.
And the butter mixture is something I threw in.  Mostly because the reviews on Food Network's website complained that the recipe lacked flavor.  I just melted the butter in a small sauce pan over the stove eye that my oven vents through, and threw in salt, pepper, and rosemary, letting it kind of marry together while I was spooning the batter into the muffin tins.

Apple Cinnamon Bread

The original recipe included no salt whatsoever.  I added salt to the flour mixture and the apple mixture because I'm a firm believer that just about everything needs at least a pinch of salt.  Especially sweet things.  Salt helps bring out the sweetness and balance the recipe, if you ask me.  Also, the original recipe didn't specify what kind of apple to use, so I did make this recipe twice; once with a Granny Smith, and once with a Red Delicious.  My family preferred the Granny Smith apple, because the tartness marries well with the brown sugar.  Plus, once it's cooked and soft, it's just amazing.
The butter mixture needs to be creamed together.  So cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, then the vanilla and bam.  Simple.  You can probably do this part in a stand mixer with a whisk or paddle attachment.  I didn't, though.  I used a hand mixer (less dishes to wash...smaller bowl, and two little beaters you can stick in the utensil holder in the dishwasher).
The flour mixture and the butter mixture, after mixed together, will kind of look like cookie dough.  After you add the milk, though, it's going to look like a thick pudding.  This is good!
The original recipe said that the longest the loaf was supposed to take was 40 minutes.  Both times I prepared it, it took 52 minutes (no, this time I didn't randomly add twelve minutes.  I added seven minutes, then five...the first time.  The second time, I added 12 randomly).
One final note, the loaf pan I used was 9x5...I actually had to buy a new one for this, and I got a good one for just under 4$.  Wal-Mart's Mainstays brand, to be specific.  It was nonstick and of good quality and weight.
This loaf is great warm as a dessert, which is what I did with it for this meal.  Serve it with some butter (or butter spread), and it's amazing.  Store in the fridge (if you want), in a plastic bag.

Overall Meal

Okay, so the way we ate this (as I stated before), was basically like a roast (sliced up), with dinner rolls, a veggie on the side (canned peas in this case...I prefer frozen, but my step-brother and step-father like canned...), and we had the apple cinnamon bread for dessert.  I cooked the brisket, then let it rest, covered so it would keep warm, while I baked the rolls.  I cooked the veggie side while the rolls were in the oven.  When the rolls were done, I served up dinner and got the loaf into the oven (I prepared the first batch while the roast was cooking) to bake.  The great thing about these recipes is that they're all at the same temperature in the oven, so you don't have to worry about the oven heating to a different temperature.  You just keep it on the whole time.  Also, these recipes can be made entirely a day in advance and kept in the fridge until you're ready to throw them in!
I know there's a lot of notes on these recipes, but really, they are very simple, and the clean up is pretty easy, too.

UPDATED 02/07/14: 

• Added picture for Easy Rolls 

UPDATED 02/13/14:

• Added links under recipe titles to credited source

Questions?  Leave a comment!