Happy St Patrick’s Day to all my Irish and “I wish I was Irish” friends out there! I fall into the latter category, but that doesn’t stop me from having a 4-leaf clover and a Celtic triskele tattoos on my ankle. Nor does it stop me from loving the heck out of all things Irish. OK, except the beer. But I don’t drink any beer so I figure it’s a moot point anyhow. Today on one of my favorite holidays, I am making one of my all time favorite meals: Corned Beef and Cabbage.

You know you love it too! It’s seriously one of the easiest things to make too. I’ve never made it in a crock pot before, so this is a new recipe for me. Normally I boil it for hours then bake it to let the sauce cook it. I’ll post that recipe as well.

But for today, I am following the “Traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage” recipe that I found via Crock-Pot.com. Actually, I got it from their iPhone app, but it’s the same thing really.

Ingredients
12 new potatoes quartered
4 carrot(s) sliced
4 pounds corned beef brisket
2 onion(s) sliced
3 bay leaves
8 black peppercorns
1 head cabbage wedged

Directions
* Place potatoes and carrots in bottom of slow cooker.
* Add brisket, onion, bay leaves and peppercorns.
* Add enough water to cover. Cook on Low 8-10 hours or High 4-5 hours.
* Add cabbage halfway through cooking.

Now, here’s the thing. I generally followed the above recipe. I left out the bay leaves and peppercorn, used 8 white potatoes, and only 2.5lbs of corned beef. What I don’t understand is how they managed to cram all that food into a 6qt crock pot. With my modifications, the lid barely fits. I can’t even imagine how over crowded it would be with 1.5lbs more of meat. Hopefully it will shrink enough for me to cram the cabbage into the pot in about 4 hours.

My go-to recipe is not only super easy, but unbelievably delicious as well. I’ve been making this version for well over 10 years and not just on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s great any time of the year!

Brown Sugar/ Mustard Glazed Corned Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients
Corned Beef
1 head of Cabbage
Red potatoes
Carrots
Brown Sugar
Yellow Mustard

This is much more of a guideline, than a recipe. Make enough to feed your family. And don’t forget that the corned beef will shrink roughly 1/3 of it’s original side after cooking.

Follow package directions to boil the corned beef and enclosed flavor packet. This usually takes several hours. You can either trim the excess fat or leave it. I leave it because it adds to the flavor while cooking.

Cut the potatoes and cabbage into quarters and slice the carrots. Place around the corned beef and completely cover with water.

Once the corned beef is fully cooked and extremely tender, remove from water and let cool for about 10 minutes. Leave the vegetables in the water, but turn off the heat.

Preheat the oven to 325*.

Mix the brown sugar and yellow mustard together. The ratio is roughly 1:1, but you can add extra brown sugar for a sweeter sauce.

Place the corned beef on a large piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Liberally spread the brown sugar and mustard glaze on the widest part of the corned beef. Wrap in foil to seal completely.

Bake the corned beef for about 20 minutes or until the glaze begins to darken and get crusty.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.

Slice and enjoy!

So tonight I decided to make apple butter. My contribution to our huge joint family Thanksgiving is the biscuits I made last week (smaller and lots more) and figured I’d give apple butter a try to serve with them.

I’d found a recipe last week that looked pretty simple. Last night I bought all the ingredients that we didn’t have and after hubby left for work tonight, I started chopping up the apples.

Ingredients
4 pounds of Granny Smith (or other sweet/tart) apples peeled and cored
1/3 cup fresh pressed apple juice (not from concentrate)
2/3 cup maple syrup (or use dark brown sugar)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and/or cloves to taste

I tossed everything into a big pot like the recipe said. First the apples, then the juices, then the sugar and spices go in last. I covered the pot and kicked the stove to medium high (6-7 on my stove) and let it boil.

Oh, my modifications are:

• 4lb mini Granny Smith apples (I didn’t take the coring into account so it ended up being less)
• Martinelli apple juice instead of fresh pressed
• I only used Ginger and Cinnamon as I didn’t have other spices

After boiling, I stirred everything to ensure the mixture coated all the apples, then turned the stove down to 2-3 and simmered for 30 minutes.

After making sure they were soft enough (OK, so I used a potato masher to test this), I scooped about a cup at a time into my mini food processor to puree the heck outta the apples. There’s still some chunks. I fail at this sometimes. Also, had I used the immersion blender from my wedding registry, it probably would’ve turned out a lot smoother.

It was still pretty wet, like apple sauce, so  I dumped everything back into the pot and simmered it for 15 minutes at a time to “dry it out” as suggested by my twitter friend Susan. It took well over 2 hours to get the right consistency, and burned the whole entire bottom of the pot. Le sigh. Maybe I’m not meant to make apple butter.

I’m going to test it again in the morning. Right now it’s cooling and then going into the fridge. Fingers crossed!