March 18, 2011

DOUBLE-HEADER FRIDAY: Corned Beef & Cabbage!

Posted by Ethne~

Thrifty Nana’s birthday is right around St. Patrick’s Day.  Naturally this is a day of big celebration, so we always cook one of our top family favorites: corned beef & cabbage.


Thrifty Nana - just turned 29!

I’m not sure about the origin of corned beef and cabbage.  It’s always served around St. Patrick’s Day, but I do not think it is 100% Irish.  I recall a ‘Good Eats’ episode on Food Network a long while back where Alton Brown discussed the making of corned beef and how it was a Jewish food tradition to preserve meat this way.  That's really neither here nor there to me.  I just want to eat it!

Speaking of Alton Brown’s corned beef episode, he did demonstrate how to make your own corned beef (I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that you ‘corn your beef briscuit’ though), but it took a while to do and I’m not up for that.  So off to Costco – Thrifty Nana bought the biggest package of corned beef briscuit we could find!


Look at the da-lish spices!

To cook:

Step 1. COOK the beef briscuit on low in the crock pot, all day long, with plenty of water.  Add some extra pickling spice if you want.  (Thrifty Nana put this one in the crock pot at 6:30 a.m. and took it out at 4:30 p.m.)


We've been boilin' all day - time to come out!

Step 2. Once the briscuit can be broken apart easily with a fork (don’t do it a lot, just to see if it’s cooked) take it out and in a separate pot on the stovetop (Thrifty Nana used a stock pot), BOIL in the following order: potatoes, carrots and cabbage in the briscuit juice.  Cook the potatoes until they are about 50% done, then add the carrots and cook together until the carrots are about 75% done and the potatoes are nearly done, then add the cabbage and boil everything for about 10 minutes.  It should be all done then!  The whole veggie boiling process should take about 30 minutes.

Bowl o' salty da-lish veggies and plate o' love.
PS - Shaun made baked potatoes instead.


Step 3.  EAT.  Think you can keep up with these harrowing steps?


Thrifty Nana and the Leprechauns + a Guiness Beer = Super Great Birthday Dinner!

HEALTH NOTE:  Corned beef is not a good meat option for daily consumption if you’re worried about sodium.  It is packed with salt (literally, that’s part of how it’s made is being packed in salt brine).

Serve with green beer or Guiness (that’s what we had!).  Or, if you’re from ND, a red beer (beer and clamato) is preferable, but it doesn’t fit the theme as well.  (BTW, is ND the only state in the Union that likes beer and clamato?  I have come to observe this as truth.)

For one day only (being of German, Swedish and Anglo-American heritage every other day of the year), I feel like a GREAT Irishwoman!  (The name Ethne is Irish for 'blueblood' - does that count?)  By contrast, Lori, who actually is part Irish, is eating prime rib and a twice baked potato for dinner tonight – what?!?  (PS, it’s her once-weekly Leap splurge meal, so don’t worry, she hasn’t fallen off the Leap wagon!)





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