Marrying an O’Brien has it’s upside, especially for someone who loves corned beef and cabbage. My first husband forbid the cooking of corned beef in his home so I lived for thirty years with pizza on St. Patrick’s Day. Well, not quite thirty years. My daughter reminded me of the time I dared to make corned beef and cabbage for dinner when her Dad was out of town for business. He called while it was cooking, insisting he could smell it over the telephone. The call ended with him requesting that the leftovers and the odor be out of the house by the time he returned home. You have to really hate corned beef and cabbage to take it that seriously.
But I am older, wiser, and married to an O’Brien now so I can cook corned beef and cabbage anytime I want. I only want corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s day. Today was the day. I had prepared early by picking through all the corned beef packages at the market until I found the perfect one. I surfed the web for the ultimate corned beef and cabbage recipe. Eventually I settled on one and tweaked it, based on the reader reviews. I went to the market early for fresh potatoes, onions, carrots and cabbage. I decided to add a beer to the recipe, a suggestion made by one reader. In case you haven’t heard, I have never had a beer. I tasted it once and could not get past the smell so I crossed beer off the list of things I wanted to eat or drink before I die. I have requested that my tombstone be engraved with the words “Never Drank a Beer” but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Not in this lifetime! But I digress, back to corned beef and cabbage.
I chose a dark ale from the cold beer aisle because it was a single. Anytime I buy a beer, which is about three times in my life, I think they are going to send me back to get the other five bottles. I was sneaky and used Self-Checkout to avoid confrontation but was tripped up when the scanner detected an alcoholic beverage purchase and alerted upper management to my register. I was somewhat relieved but perturbed when the guy took a look at me and went back to his station without a word spoken. I thought he would check my ID and tell me I don’t look my age. Then I would laugh and tell him about the time I got carded at IHop for ordering from the senior menu. Apparently I won’t be carded again in this lifetime either. Oh well, I got out of the store with one bottle of beer.
The beer almost didn’t make it into the recipe after all because as I unloaded my grocery bags from the car, the bag containing the beer ripped and the bottle fell straight down onto the cement floor. The cap flew off and beer spewed but amazingly, the glass didn’t break. I grabbed a bowl and sat the beer in it to catch the overflow. So when I say add a pint of dark ale to the pot I mean the whole pint! Anyway, I spent the day preparing my corned beef and cabbage with dark ale and it came out so good! We just finished eating and I thought I’d post the recipe. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you had corned beef and cabbage if that’s what you wanted. And if not, make it anytime you want. Here’s the RECIPE. Just make sure you get the smell out of the house before he comes home.
redhead83402 says
This is Hilarious!! I also am a total non-beer person, in fact, the first time I ever smelled beer, I thought it stank like urine. I still do think that, but I haven’t dared smell the stuff since that first time, so who knows, perhaps they have somehow made it more fragrant & less odiferous ~ but it won’t be me finding that out ~;-D Your St. Paddy’s meal looks divine!! How do you get your meat to look like that? Whenever I cook it, the stuff always falls apart in the midst of cutting it. We basically have shredded corned beef ~;-D
Love your blog, by the way, and thanks again for the awesome basket, it was just fun as heck & cute to boot!!
~Red
jayedee in central florida says
i found your blog via a post on backyard chickens and i must say, i love it! i’ve bookmarked it and will be back to read more. nicetameetcha!
Mary says
But I have dibs on putting on my tombstone!
You Know Who says
You must have got your love of beer from your Mother. That is my experience with beer exactly