St. Patrick's Day Feast!

Biddy!


I have so much to add, that I'm going to do it in two posts. First of all, we had a few people over for a St. Patrick's Day feast! We've made a "New England Boiled Dinner" in the past, which is corned beef and veggies slow cooked in a big pot. This year, George wanted to corn his own beef. This process basically does to a big piece of beef what Mama and Papa do to gravlox. We started last Sunday with George trimming the beef and pressing spices into it and then refrigerating it under weights.

I would never do something like that for ten million dollars. Good thing George knows how to deal with meat.


I actually felt like crap on Thursday, if you recall, so I didn't do much to help out with this meal. After spending the entire week flipping the corned beef, we took it out and rinsed it and then simmered it over very low heat for 3 hours. We then took the beef out and put it in a 200 degree oven and cooked potatoes, carrots, parsnips, boiling onions, and cabbage in the broth. It was actually REALLY good! We had asparagus and Irish Soda Bread on the side. We used the "New Best Recipe" Cook's Illustrated cookbook version of Irish Soda Bread. It was easy, crusty and all-around delicious! 

All of my pictures of the meet and veggies turned out blurry. Sorry. You get the idea, though!

And for dessert, George made a chocolate stout cake from smitten kitchen!! It was awesome! We (George - I was passed out in pain on the couch) made it Wednesday night, and did the ganache on Thursday. It was really, really good!

A successful St. Patrick's Day feast, except I had to go to bed early. Otherwise a perfect success!


More on our weekend festivities in a minute!


Claire!