St. Patrick's Day Dinner - Corned Beef and Cabbage

Every year I make Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick's Day.  And every year my husband asks why I don't make it more often than once a year.  It is a good question and one I do not have an answer to.  Maybe this year I can make it more - maybe twice?  I make my dinner for 8-10 people but it can be made for less in the same amount of time, just cut the amount of ingredients in half or a third.  Make this dinner and serve it with Irish Soda Bread smeared with Irish Butter.  That recipe is here at: http://homemadeonli.blogspot.com/2011/03/st-patricks-day-dinner-irish-soda-bread.html

Serves 8-10 with leftovers

Ingredients:

15 lbs of Corned Beef with a seasoning pack, either one large or 3 5 lb pieces
2 heads of cabbage, cut into large pieces
2 lbs small potatoes or large potatoes cut into quarters or halves
2 lbs carrots, cut into 2 inch long pieces
4 bottles of beer
water

Here's how:

Place your large soup pot on stove.

Cut your corned beef into 5 lbs pieces if you have one large piece. I had a 15 lb piece cut in 3.

Place the corned beef in the bottom of the pot.  Add the beer and then fill the pot with water. 

Add the seasoning pack.
                                                                                                                                        

Meat in the bottom of the pot

Water, beer and seasoning pack added

Turn the stove on and cook the meat for 3 hours on a low simmer.  Do not have it boiling.

After 3 hours, add the potatoes and carrots.  Cook 40 more minutes.

Add cabbage and cook 15-20 minutes until softened.  

By this point, the potatoes and carrots should be soft, the meat should fall apart if you put a fork in it.  Take it all out of the pot and serve.

If you have leftovers, save some of the cooking water and use it to re-heat the meat with - it keeps it really moist.