St. Patty's Dinner

I look forward to St. Patrick's Day every year. Not because I'm Irish or a drunk, but because I can't get enough corned beef and Irish soda bread during the year!

For several years when my close college friends were still around I'd always host a St. Patty's day dinner and it consisted of slow cooked corned beef with cabbage and new potatoes. Someone would bake the soda bread and there would be a lot of beer.

This year I decided to co host dinner with the Jew. We were thinking of doing just a small thing for the house, then we both wanted to invite a few people... before I knew it I was cooking a meal for 30 people. On Wednesday evening I drove around to three different grocery stores nabbing the largest piece of corned beef they had on sale. By the end of the night I had 15lbs of corned beef sitting in my fridge.

I took down my slow cooker and realized there was no way I could cook all meat. So I ended up boiling the meat over night. I took the broth and boiled my cabbage in it the next day. An hour before dinner I threw the corned beef in the oven and let it roast. The meat was so tender and not overly salty. I was getting all sorts of compliments from my friends. (My favorite always being, "Damn, you put my mom's to shame and I thought her's was the best.")


I also baked a loaf of stout beer bread with a touch of molasses... I'm going to have to work on the recipe a bit more. I tried modify a Spanish bread recipe I had by substituting beer for water and adding molasses. The bread came out a slightly dry and looking burnt but it tasted like stout.


Rosie helped me make the Irish soda bread and wow it was amazing! First time I've ever had it where it was cooked all the way through, crusty on the outside and moist in the inside. The caraway seeds in it were a nice touch, and it complimented the corned beef and cabbage extremely well.


Instead of the standard red potatoes, I found a recipe online for colcannon. Essentially it was mashed potatoes with either kale or cabbage. I found it to be a lot easier (and cheaper) to make it for a large group of people than red potatoes. I ended up harvesting a bunch of yellow, orange, and white swiss chard from the garden and substituting it for cabbage or kale. The colors were everything St. Patty's day for me!



I also prepared a pasta salad for the vegetarians (if the other carbs weren't enough). I'm calling it my Pot of Gold. It was Penne pasta with crumbled Irish sharp cheddar and daisy greens (edible chrysanthemums) tossed with a touch of honey and olive oil. Not Irish, but it blended in nicely with the rest of the dishes.

But for me, the best part of dinner was the dessert. Rosie made the desserts. She made the moistest and the best Vanilla Bean Raisin Bread Pudding and an "orgasmic" (Grady's words echoed by all) Apple Dub. The Apple Dub was an apple cored then stuffed with brown sugar, butter, cranberries, and raisins all wrapped elegantly inside a puff pastry shell and baked.


Afterwards we were drinking till the night was over, and I was walking around spiking everyone's drink with green food coloring.