*Oops...I meant to post this on Wednesday!*
Yesterday was St. Patricks day, and I was all prepared to give making corned beef and cabbage a try for the first time. Except the kids were really sick, throwing up all over the house and clearly not up to a trip to the store for the carrots and potatoes I had forgotten. So, the big St. Patties day feast was delayed.
Today we went to the store and picked up our forgotten ingredients, and got everything set out to cook:
I cooked it for about 3 1/2 hours, adding the cabbage, potatoes and carrots during the last half hour. I had to take the cabbage out early because it was getting too done, but other than that, everything came together nicely. The final product:
Everything was a hit except for the cabbage. The kids and I had never had it before, and it certainly didn't leave us wanting more. I don't know if it was the taste, the texture or both, but none of us liked it. Matthew and the chickens enjoyed it though! Next year I will have to get a bigger slab of the corned beef. I guess I should also tell the story of why I got such a little piece...keep reading if you need a good laugh.
Over the weekend Matthew and I had seen in the paper that New Seasons had corned beef on sale for $4.99 a pound. So on Monday Rowan and I hit Winco, and Costco, getting our weekly grocery shopping done, and I decided to go to New Seasons to get Matthew some sandwich meat, because I know he has been missing lunch meat since we went (mostly) nitrate free. And the new seasons stuff was nitrate free, and on sale, so how could I pass it up?
When we got to new seasons, I headed back to the meat counter, saw the big slabs of meat with the $4.99 sale tag and asked the guy for 1 pound....sliced. He cut a hunk off, and placed it on the scale, but made no move to slice it. I asked him again, can I please get that sliced and he gave me a quizzical look and said "I can cut it with a knife for you, but we don't have a raw meat slicer back here". At this point, I am realizing that I have made some kind of error, but don't know quite what went wrong. I mean, this was meat for sandwiches...right? But why was it raw?? I muttered out something along the lines of "No, no...I will just take it like that" and hightailed it away from the counter. Confused, I walked down to the deli meat section, where I checked out their meats but didn't find anything on sale. Things were getting stranger by the minute. What had I just bought? I went to the front and looked at the ad again, and realized my mistake. When Matthew and I had been looking at the paper, the sale was for corned beef. But it was cooked and sliced in the picture, so I filed it away in my mind as roast beef. You know, something that Matthew could make sandwiches out of. Since I already had my miserably small hunk of meat in the cart I picked up a head of cabbage, and accepted my fate...I would be making corned beef and cabbage for dinner.
To make this whole story even more embarrassing? As I was getting Rowan out of the car to head into New Seasons, Aimee was getting out of her car to head into New Seasons too. We decided to shop together, and she witnessed the whole thing. She was very kind about it, but I am sure that inside she was laughing hysterically at my faux pas. And I never did get Matthew any sandwich meat....
Yesterday was St. Patricks day, and I was all prepared to give making corned beef and cabbage a try for the first time. Except the kids were really sick, throwing up all over the house and clearly not up to a trip to the store for the carrots and potatoes I had forgotten. So, the big St. Patties day feast was delayed.
Today we went to the store and picked up our forgotten ingredients, and got everything set out to cook:
I cooked it for about 3 1/2 hours, adding the cabbage, potatoes and carrots during the last half hour. I had to take the cabbage out early because it was getting too done, but other than that, everything came together nicely. The final product:
Everything was a hit except for the cabbage. The kids and I had never had it before, and it certainly didn't leave us wanting more. I don't know if it was the taste, the texture or both, but none of us liked it. Matthew and the chickens enjoyed it though! Next year I will have to get a bigger slab of the corned beef. I guess I should also tell the story of why I got such a little piece...keep reading if you need a good laugh.
Over the weekend Matthew and I had seen in the paper that New Seasons had corned beef on sale for $4.99 a pound. So on Monday Rowan and I hit Winco, and Costco, getting our weekly grocery shopping done, and I decided to go to New Seasons to get Matthew some sandwich meat, because I know he has been missing lunch meat since we went (mostly) nitrate free. And the new seasons stuff was nitrate free, and on sale, so how could I pass it up?
When we got to new seasons, I headed back to the meat counter, saw the big slabs of meat with the $4.99 sale tag and asked the guy for 1 pound....sliced. He cut a hunk off, and placed it on the scale, but made no move to slice it. I asked him again, can I please get that sliced and he gave me a quizzical look and said "I can cut it with a knife for you, but we don't have a raw meat slicer back here". At this point, I am realizing that I have made some kind of error, but don't know quite what went wrong. I mean, this was meat for sandwiches...right? But why was it raw?? I muttered out something along the lines of "No, no...I will just take it like that" and hightailed it away from the counter. Confused, I walked down to the deli meat section, where I checked out their meats but didn't find anything on sale. Things were getting stranger by the minute. What had I just bought? I went to the front and looked at the ad again, and realized my mistake. When Matthew and I had been looking at the paper, the sale was for corned beef. But it was cooked and sliced in the picture, so I filed it away in my mind as roast beef. You know, something that Matthew could make sandwiches out of. Since I already had my miserably small hunk of meat in the cart I picked up a head of cabbage, and accepted my fate...I would be making corned beef and cabbage for dinner.
To make this whole story even more embarrassing? As I was getting Rowan out of the car to head into New Seasons, Aimee was getting out of her car to head into New Seasons too. We decided to shop together, and she witnessed the whole thing. She was very kind about it, but I am sure that inside she was laughing hysterically at my faux pas. And I never did get Matthew any sandwich meat....