Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy day indeed!  We love St. Patrick, and our favorite way to celebrate is to cook a big corned beef and cabbage feast for friends and family and the folks at Safe Haven.  By big, we mean 6 cuts of beef, 10 pounds of potatoes, three large cabbages and a bunch of other vegetables.

I think I have finally nailed down the best way to cook that much corned beef!

I rinsed each cut of beef in the big stock pot (half full of water).  Then I put each cut into a roasting pan with a bottle of stout, sprinkled the spice mixture on the meat, sealed it up and put it in the oven at 250 degrees for most of the day (7-8 hours).

Meanwhile, I cut up carrots, onions, celery, garlic and loads of potatoes and cooked them in the broth from rinsing the meat (plus some spices, beef bouillon cubes and a bottle of stout).  This has been going at just under a simmer all day.

About 5 hours in (2 hours before dinner) I flipped the meat and discovered it was pretty well done.  I sliced up the cabbage, put it on top of the meat, sealed it all up again, and turned the heat down to 175.
UPDATE: The cabbage was a little under done, I think next time I'll put it in with the meat in the beginning.

And Klenda made St. Patrick's Day brownies!

Meanwhile, every year we like to watch this:



And this:



And let's not forget the Veggie Tales version!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!