St. Patricks Dinner, a day late.

Because of our 'date day' yesterday, we skipped the big, traditional St. Patricks dinner(we made the girls chicken strips and fries...we were still full from Bobs Burgers...and wine).  I had bought two packages of corned beef, so, I set to useing one of them today.  The other will stay in the freezer for about 2-3 months.

My wife's corned beef history is 100% the Traditional New England Boiled Dinner.  You boil your corned beef with the seasoning pack for a few hours, then pull the meat, and place carrots, potatoes and cabbage in the used water, and boil those for about half an hour...serve. 

I find that kind of blah, and so I now combine a few different techniques.  I braise the corned beef for about 3-4 hours in a nice beer(today was Iron Horse Brewery Irish Death).  Braising is not boiling...I add enough beer to cover half the meat, and then seal the container well.  Place it in the oven at 300 for an hour, then down to 275 for the next 3 hours.

At that point, I pull the corned beef, and keep it warm.  I then dump carrots and potatoes into the beer, and throw it in the over at 450 for half an hour, before adding the cabbage for 15 minutes...I like my cabbage to have texture still. 

While that is going, mix some honey and spicy brown mustard 50-50, and smear it on the corned beef.  Toss is back in the oven for the last 10 minutes of the veggies...you want the mustard and honey to glaze up.

The bread to complete the dish was Buttery Sweet Bread, which was neither as buttery or as sweet as I hoped it would be.  Still, fresh bread is very rarely bad...especially when topped with some of my wife's canned cinamon apple sauce(might as well be apple butter...yum, yum, yum.)

The only downer is that my New Years Resolution, which I am still following, did not allow me to have a beer with my dinner. 

Luckily, the company more than makes up for it...