Corned Beef and Cabbage (my take on boiled dinner)

So of course, I just had to make some corned beef and cabbage this past weekend for St. Patricks day. It's one of Mike's absolute favorite meals, me - eh I can do without. I wanted to do something a little different than the traditional way my mom always did it so, I tried!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 corned beef with spice packet (the one we used was a smaller about 3 pounds)
• 1 large can of Guinness
• 3 medium parsnips
• 3 medium carrots
• 3 minced cloves of garlic
• 1 head of cabbage
• 3-4 medium red potatoes cut into quarters
• 2 tablespoons whole grain dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste
• butter

Place corned beef into crock pot with spices that comes with it, along with the beer. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

A half hour before the corned beef will be gone, cut up the carrots, parsnips, garlic and cabbage and place into a large pot. Cover with water, and boil until all of the veggies are fork tender. Drain the water and leave the veggies in the pot, add in a few teaspoons of butter- salt and pepper to taste and stir. Set aside.

Take the corned beef out of the crock pot, rinse off any spices that are on it and place into a shallow baking dish. Strain the beer and juices of the spices from the crock pot into a small sauce pan. Add in brown sugar, mustard, worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and reduce by half (about 15 minutes). 

Pour 3/4 sauce on corned beef and bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then pour a little of the remaining sauce into the boiled veggies and stir.

Serve corned beef over the boiled veggies.

This is just what you would expect a boiled dinner to be. If you like it, you know you will like it- and if it's just not for you, than you probably already know it. I only make it once a year- and that is plenty for me. My husband on the other hand… he wishes he could eat it more often. Cheers!