A Bit of Blarney is Good for Everyone!

St. Patty's day is just around the corner.  Being half Irish, I'm proud to celebrate with some good old corned beef and cabbage (paired, of course, with a bit of horseradish, don't you know).  For most of my life, I'd never tried this traditional dish.  My dad, the full-blooded Irishman (Lawrence Michael Patrick Connors), doesn't particularly care for the dish, so my full-blooded German mother never felt the need to serve it.  But my sister Susan decided years ago to start a tradition with her family, that gradually evolved into an annual feast for us sisters and our families.  My mouth is already starting to water just thinking about next Saturday's meal!

 

If you've never tackled making corned beef & cabbage, yourself, give it a go.  It's an easy and inexpensive dish to make.  Here's a good basic recipe from allrecipes.com to get you started. We've never used carrots like this recipe calls for, but it might be a nice addition.  -- from Sharon


Barb's notes: My family grew up on corned beef and cabbage, not because we were Irish (we thought we were a bit Irish until genealogy study a few years ago proved we were Dutch), but because it was a cheap way to feed our family of five. Mom and Dad would stock up on all those after-St. Patrick's Day briskets for sale at the store, and put them in the deep-freeze. Dad would then pull one out, place it in the Crock Pot with some beer, and we'd have a whole roast for dinner that night.


To this day, I stock up on the after-holiday briskets as well. Last year I got them for 49 cents a pound!  I stuffed my freezer with them and cook them up on occasion to make a traditional dinner like the one above, or for lunch meat, or corned beef hash. 


Of course, a corned beef dinner is not complete without a Guinness or Harp beer.