How Was Your St. Patty's Day?

What is corned beef? For us, it's something that we eat every year on St. Patrick's day. Corned beef refers to a particular style of brine-cured beef. The "corn" in corned beef refers to the "corns" or grains of coarse salts used to cure it. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the usage of corn, meaning "small hard particle, a grain, as of sand or salt." Potassium nitrate (saltpeter) is often added to the brine to help preserve the beef's pink color. In the U.S. and Canada, corned beef typically comes in two forms, a cut of beef (usually brisket, but sometimes round or silverside) cured or pickled in a seasoned brine, and canned (pre-cooked).

In the United States, corned beef is often purchased ready to eat in delicatessens. It is the key ingredient in the famous grilled Reuben sandwich, consisting of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island or Russian dressing on rye bread. Corned beef hash is commonly served with eggs for breakfast. Smoking corned beef, typically with a generally similar spice mix, produces the cold cut known as pastrami. Here is how our Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner went last night~ Corned Beef bought at CostCo (we didn't have the brisket part of our last Natural Beef harvest made into corned beef this time) Packaged in San Jose, CA (local for us) Place Corned Beef, carrots and potatoes into a slow cooker with 5-7 cups of water and pickling spices (normally comes with the corned beef). Cook for 8 hours in slow cooker... The result.... Cut your cabbage into wedges. Place in a microwave safe dish. Pour in 2 cups of the liquid from the slow cooker and microwave for 7-10 minutes. Okay, I forgot to use the liquid from the slow cooker and used tap water instead. It happens. The cabbage could have been more flavorful. There's always next year....right? Corned Beef goes well with any mustard, I use a spicy sweet type..... All in all, it was a good dinner......to eat once a year. The kids enjoyed it, Bryce even liked the cabbage. Hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day with Corned Beef & Cabbage.....or just had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day without corned beef. Happy Thursday!

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