SRC Recipe: Crockpot Corned Beef and Cabbage

Whoop whoop...it's time...it's time for the Secret Recipe Club Group D reveal. The Secret Recipe Club is a great group where each month we are assigned a "Secret" blog where we excitedly choose a recipe and then on our reveal date we share our recipes. My favorite part in the reveal is trying to guess who had my blog and seeing what they chose. 

I was so excited when I chose the recipe for my SRC Assignment. I actually have had this particular blog before. In September of 2012 I made this recipe from her blog. Emily's blog Life on food is a great blog. Please take time to read her About me page. It's great. She's quite an adventurous girl.

The recipe I chose was her Crockpot Corned Beef and Cabbage . I have been craving Corned Beef and Cabbage for awhile now and so when I saw that she had a recipe for it, I thought "why not make this one." I was a bit nervous. I grew up eating corned beef, but have never made it myself. I had been googling recipes prior to this assignment so I combined a few ideas. 

Today is St. Patrick's Day (well, the day I'm writing this post) so I knew it was the perfect day to try this. Yah, it would have been nice had I thought about the fact that it takes longer than 8 hours to cook in a crockpot and I was making this on a Sunday morning with plans to eat lunch by 1:30. You do the math. But there was no turning back. I had invited company over. So I went for it. The end result was a great, tender dinner. 

The funny thing is, the recipe calls for beer. I don't drink anything alcohol so had no clue what to look for. I FB messaged a friend of mine for advice, then went to the store and stared dumbly at all the options. Yikes! I also  opted to NOT buy an inexpensive brand of corned beef but instead chose to buy from our local Chucks Produce and Street Market. We are on a continual journey of healthier more aware eating and I wanted to know what we were eating. I purchased a brisket that is from a local farm (Oregon) called Painted Hills Beef. It was WAY more, but WAY worth it. 

Last night I prepped the onions and carrots, placed them in plastic bags to dump in the crockpot in the morning. Went to bed, set the alarm for 4:50 and couldn't fall asleep! Grr...but I survived and dinner was ready to go by 1:45. I even made Irish Soda Bread from Miz Helen's Country Cottage. She posted this recipe on last weeks reveal! I went all out! Yay!

Okay, enough of the babble...sorry, I'm tired. On with the recipe. I am putting Emily's ingredients with my additions in italics. I will post my instructions, so please click the above link to see her instructions. They don't differ much except for the order in which I added things to the crockpot. I know my crockpot and it cooks hot so I didn't add the veggies right away. Also, my corned beef didn't have a packet, but the seasonings were in with the beef so I didn't rinse it, but now thinking I should have because they were too strong for everyone. 

Crock Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage
Adapted from Life on Food

Ingredients:

4 carrots peeled (I used a few more because there were 6 of us)
1 medium onion cut in to wedges
1 clove garlic (my addition)
4-6 red potatoes, quartered or halved depending on size
1 4lb corned beef brisket (mine was almost 3lbs.)
12 oz. Stout or Dark Ale (I used 8 oz. and 3 c. of water)
2 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs. Vinegar
1 Tbs. Corned Beef spices or spice packet that comes with your corned beef
1 medium head of cabbage cut in wedges

Instructions:

1. Place onion and garlic in bottom of crockpot. Top with Corned Beef.

check out those spices...WOW! But I seriously should have left them out of the cooking process...it's not fun to pick them out.

2. Combine beer, water, vinegar and sugar. Stir and pour over beef. 

3. Cook on low for 4 hours. 

4. Add Carrots and Potatoes to the top of beef. Cook another 4 hours or so. 

5. At the end, remove meat and veggies, cover with foil to keep warm. Add chopped cabbage to the liquid, cooking on high till it reaches desired consistency. Mine took about 20 minutes or so. 

*Notes: After I removed the meat, potatoes and carrots, I added some saurkraut to the top, and covered it with foil to keep warm, even put it in the oven for a few minutes.

I also cooked it for 4 hours on low and 4 hours on high because I didn't really have 9-10 hours for total cooking time. It came out perfectly moist and the veggies were just right. 

And again, I would have personally rinsed the beef off and NOT added anymore spices. I think the fact that this brisket sat in the spices in the package seasoned it enough.

Well, that's about it. Mark this recipe to make next St. Patty's Day, or before.  




With Joy UNquenchable,