Happy St. Patrick's Day! Crock Pot Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes

 

Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes, accompanied with the mandatory Guiness.

I love America. We really are the melting pot of the world. No other country has our diversity. It's a wonderful place to grow up, and I thank the good Lord for the blessing of being born into the good ol' U. S. of A. We do lots of things particularly well, like basketball, winning world wars, and generally being awesome, but we really excel in incorporating other countries' holidays for the purpose of intoxication. Two that spring to mind immediately: Cinco de Mayo, and more topical for this post, St. Patrick's Day.

Apparently in some places in the world, St. Patty's is actually a celebration of a saint. Like, the actual St. Patrick, credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, and being the patron of the Emerald Isle. Instead of celebrating the man and his life, Americans have taken the holiday and turned it into something I'm not sure he would quite approve of. Check out any college campus on March 17. Everyone wears green, and if you don't, you get pinched. The Guiness flows like water, and frat boys extort kisses out of co-eds by claiming to be Irish, when they are clearly from California.

Don't get me wrong, I love St. Patty's. I think it's fun to celebrate Irish culture. I also look pretty good in green, so there's that. I even tried to grow shamrocks once, which didn't go so well, as I tend to kill any and all plants. What I really love about St. Patrick's is, you guessed it, the food possibilities. This is the time to use up any green food coloring you may have lying around, and Guiness is surprisingly versatile for cooking and baking. If you want to be all traditional, though, you have to go with corned beef and cabbage.

I am actually pretty lazy when it comes to cooking. You might
think that a crock pot would be perfect for me, because you don't have to do much work. The problem with that is that it requires lots of foresight, of which I have none. Usually, I decide what to make for dinner about an hour before and just go with it. Crock pots make me make a decision 10 WHOLE HOURS before dinner, which is a long time! Still, this particular corned beef recipe is pretty easy if you have the ability to plan ahead. You don't have to do anything, just throw everything in a pot in the morning before work, turn it
once or twice when you get home, add some veggies, and boom- leprechaun munchies. You don't even need many ingredients, but it is absolutely essential that you serve this with Guiness. If you don't, St. Patrick will be sad, and you don't want that.

Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes
 2 lb package of corned beef
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup white zinfandel

1 lb baby potatoes
1 small cabbage

Place corned beef in crock pot. Mix together corned beef spice packet (should come with the corned beef), brown sugar, mustard, water, and zinfandel. Pour over beef. Turn beef a few times to coat with mustard mix. Set crock pot on low for 10 hours. Turn at least once.

When there are about two hours left, add potatoes to the crock pot. When there is one hour left, add cabbage to the crock pot. Slice beef and serve with cabbage and potatoes. Don't forget the Guiness!