Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

It seems like corned beef and cabbage is the St. Patrick's Day equivalent to margaritas and burritos on Cinco de Mayo. So, Irish-American (or Mexican-American) food. I get, though...and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a melting pot, we often grab on to symbolism and culture in only flashy, consumeristic way we know how.

I grew up in a country that uses Lucky Charms, four leaf clovers, Irish cream, green beer and spry little leprechauns to represent something that has nothing to do with any of those things. And while I've been told that I have a sliver of Irish in me, that was the extent of it. I knew nothing about my Irish roots (or my German, Bohemian - as in Czech, or Cherokee ones, either).

Corned Beef Hash ...with an egg

No time for talkin' today.  It's 74° and sunny and breezy and that seems to be making me unable to concentrate in front of the computer screen.  No complaints here, though.  Everything feels alive!  Birds are twittering (actual birds...not tweeps) high in the trees...squirrels are chasing each other up and down trees...kitty cats are whimpering at the windows...kids are running and playing and panting with flushed cheeks.  I must get out there and join in this bit of Spring bliss.  So, a post from the "draft" section...something that's been waiting for its chance to "get out", too... Corned Beef Hash made from that home-cured Corned Beef a while back.

Corned Beef Hash
Hmmm...not so much a recipe as a method.  Amounts are up to you, too.

Butter

Onions, diced

Garlic, minced

Potatoes, cooked & diced or cubed

Corned Beef, diced or shredded

salt

freshly ground pepper

Egg, cooked any way you like

Tabasco (or any hot sauce you like), optional

Heat some butter in a large skillet.  Add the onion and garlic and sauté until soft.  Add the potatoes and corned beef and stir everything around.  Cook for a few minutes until everything is heated through.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Cook an egg how you like it.  Put the hash on a plate and top it with the egg.  Sprinkle with Tabasco to taste.

REUBEN SANDWICH ...for Charcutepalooza March challenge: brining

Better late than never, right?  That was my line of thinking when I decided to join in Charcutepalooza.  After missing the first two challenges.  I figure I'll play catch-up with the two previous challenges- Duck Prosciutto and the Salt Cure.  

It's kind of great to start with challenge: Brining anyway.  I mean.  I already brine at least once a year (think big, delicious birds), often more...and I actually brined briskets many years back in restaurant-world the week before St. Paddy's Day, so what better place to jump in?  I have a "thing" with needing to eat corned beef on or around the day when everybody is Irish, too.  Plus, my brother has been asking me to make him a Reuben since just before the new year, so...

Everybody's Irish today!

Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone! All I felt like eating today was a traditional Irish meal...no muss, no fuss. I know the corned beef isn't actually completely authentic (it was originally Irish Bacon)...but, corned beef w/ cabbage is something I look forward to each year. I know, I know...I can have it anytime, but I usually just have it today (or there abouts). I wanted Champ with it, too...I didn't have any baking potatoes, so I used red potatoes. Did red potatoes originate in Ireland, too? I seem to remember reading about their origins being somewhere in Prussia (which no longer exists...it was between Poland & Russia). Does anybody know if red potatoes are originally from Ireland, too? Well, I used them anyway.