Onions for the Office

To celebrate the holiday season, we decided to have a little holiday potluck at my office this afternoon, before shutting down for the long holiday weekend.

Here's a little something you should know about my job. I'm in a creative field and I work with a lot of uber-creative folks. I am not necessarily one of those crazy-minded thinkers (I'm looking directly at you, HK and JW), but when we gather, the end result is usually pretty fun and a tad bit wacky.

So for today, we themed our potluck "Around the World" and everyone brought in something holiday-traditional from a different country. We had showings from Poland, Germany, Peru, the United States (see note re: creative!), Italy, France (champagne counts for France, right?) and more. I was at a complete loss over what to contribute, so I brought in a traditional Jewish dish - brisket. I KNOW that "Jewish" is not a country, but it filled the meat void and ethnic requirement.

In prepping the brisket, I chopped a ton of onions. So many, in fact, that my eyes were watering and my throat was stinging, which is a first. Really. And peeps - you know that I use a lot of onions in my cooking, so this eye watering business was kind of a strange sensation for me. Lest you think it is showing any sort of office-based sensitivity, immediately remove that thought from your head. It just proves that I always go the extra mile for my beloved co-workers.

Let me leave you with this one thought, which I think pretty much sums up our day today:
"I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be."

(We actually work really hard all the time, so we deserved a little holiday cheer! OH - and name the source of the quote - what a fun game for you, blog readers. Winner may get a special prize. Or at the very least - a blog shout out. Try to contain your excitement.)

Slow-Cooked Brisket in Onion Gravy
Source: EatingWell, January/February 2011

I'm not typing the whole thing out. Nor do I have a picture.

Reviews:
Like most crock pot recipes, this was fairly easy to throw together. The directions included some notes about advance preparation, which was great because I did half of it last night and finished it off this morning. I was a little nervous that the meat wasn't going to be tender enough, because I cooked it on low for 4 hours, then on high for about 3 more (do the math - that means I started it at 4a, peeps), but my co-workers seemed to really enjoy it. And, since they are all loyal readers of this blog, they knew they had to provide a review.

Ranking:
Four Forks