For Memorial Day, we decided to make barbecue brisket, corn-on-the-cob, kale salad and roasted, honeyed pears.  Russ & Erica came over for dinner and they brought corn bread and cabbage slaw so we had a feast!

For the brisket, we started the day before and let it cook in our secret homemade barbecue sauce all night in the slow cooker.  Another secret is that we rub the brisket with a spicy dry rub before we put it in the barbecue sauce.  Then when it’s really tender, we take it out and pull it apart with 2 forks and put it back in the barbecue sauce to absorb even more of sauce.

For the kale salad, we just chopped and chopped kale and brussel sprouts, added almonds and grated parmesan cheese and topped it with a mustard dijon dressing.  We made this ahead of time as well.  We just didn’t add the almonds/cheese and dressing till it was time to eat.

For the roasted pears, we combined pears, honey, cinnamon, butter and a little rum and roasted for about 60 minutes at 350 degrees.  The recipe calls for cutting pears in half and placing them cut size down, which we did for the first 30 minutes, but we flipped them over for the second 30 minutes. Also the recipe called for 30-35 minutes, but that definitely wasn’t enough. Even after 45 minutes the pears were hard so we cooked them another 15 minutes. We are not sure if it was the pears that were too hard to begin with or if the recipe was wrong but ultimately they were still delicious! Especially with fresh whipped cream.

The corn-on-the-cob was pretty simple: just oil water and add corn.  And Russ and Erica brought a great coleslaw and cornbread–so it made a really pretty (and tasty) plate