This is a fantastic recipe and a huge hit at our house. Even our picky 13 year old will eat it, in spite of the onions! For the tomatoes, I've used both diced and crushed and it's wonderful either way. I also substitute half of the sausage with spicy sausage. If you're looking for fewer calories, this is also great with turkey italian sausage. The only other change I make is to use basil instead of parsley (dried works great since this is what I usually have).

Sounds weird. Tastes DELICIOUS! I will be taking this to my next dinner group. YUMMY! Can't wait to try it over vanilla ice cream.

I love beef brisket but have never cooked it in a slow cooker until I tried this recipe. I followed the instructions for cooking the meat exactly, though I did add a dry rub to the meet. My brisket was about 4 pounds so I cut everything in half. I set my crock pot on low and began the process. After about 16 hours of cooking, I realized the house smelled like the meat was burning. Boy was I glad I checked it! The coffee had all burned off, the drippings in the crock pot had burned, and the meat was starting to burn. Fortunately, I was able to salvage the meal, but if I hadn't been home and just trusted this to cook for 24 hours, my family dinner would have been completely ruined. I've read the other comments about burned meat and I'm wondering if you need to cut down the cooking time when you use a smaller brisket. Also, I used a different, bolder recipe for the sauce (also on this website). It turned out great, but if I try it again, I'll either cut down the cooking time or stick with the oven. The advantage to the crock pot is it doesn't heat up the whole house.