Many families celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a Corned Beef and Cabbage Dinner. Our dinner usually includes corned beef, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage.
The key to a tender corned beef is to simmer it in a covered pot of water and spices for approximately two hours or more. First bring the water to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer. Remove the roast from the pot when it is fork tender and keep warm while you cook carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. Cut the cabbage into wedges and carefully add to pot. The cabbage should be added last as it takes less time to cook.
The spices that accompany the corned beef give it a unique flavor. I prefer not to cook my vegetables in the same water as I cook the corned beef because the spices overwhelm the flavor of the vegetables. When ready to serve, slice the meat across the grain. There are many recipes for corned beef and cabbage.
You may wonder where the term “corned beef” came from. Corning is a form of curing. In the days before refrigeration, meat was dry-cured in coarse “corns” of salt. Chunks of salt, akin to the shape and size of corn kernels, were rubbed into the beef to keep it from spoiling and to preserve it.
These days instead of dry salt, salt water is used to “corn” beef. This process is called brining. We can consider the name “corned beef” still relevant because of the spices that are added to it, one of the most prevalent being peppercorns.
Desserts are my favorite St. Patrick’s Day goodies.
1. Make cupcakes from your favorite recipe or a cake mix, chocolate cake or white cake. Frost with vanilla frosting. Place a 1-inch shamrock-shaped cookie cutter on a cupcake. Sprinkle some of the green sugar inside cookie cutter; remove cutter. Repeat with remaining cupcakes and sugar.
Colored sugar is tinted granulated sugar that can be found in the decorating section of the baking aisle of most supermarkets. To make your own, add a drop of green food coloring to granulated sugar and shake in a jar to blend.
2. Bake chocolate cupcakes. Add one cup of mint chocolate chips to batter before baking. Frost cupcakes with peppermint icing. To garnish each cupcake, cut 1 green gumdrop into 4 slices. Place 3 rounds on cupcake to make shamrock leaves; press remaining round into thin strip and place below leaves for stem.
3. Bake mini sugar cookies from a recipe or from store bought refrigerated cookie dough. Place a teaspoon full of green mint chocolate chip ice cream between two cookies and press together. Roll edges in sprinkles or green sugar. Wrap individual cookie sandwiches in waxed paper or sandwich bags and freeze.
4. If ice cream cookie sandwiches sound a little too cold for this time of year, fill two cookies with vanilla frosting that has been tinted green. If you like peppermint add a little Watkins Peppermint Flavoring to the frosting.
Eleisia Whitney is a Watkins Home Business owner. She enjoys cooking and baking with Watkins extracts, spices, herbs, and sauces for healthy meals. Eleisia publishes a Watkins Newsletter, “Around the Kitchen Table,†that brings you recipes, cooking and health tips, and contests for free Watkins products.
Read the current issue at http://www.everydaynecessities.com/march1-07newsletter.htm
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