Vivo O Sonho

I’m 100% Orange Irish. For those who don’t know the difference, in a nutshell: Green are from the south, Catholic and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Orange are from the north, Protestant and celebrate July the 12th. (The story goes much deeper; I’ll save that for another day!)

Although I’ve been Jewish for over 20 years, I was brought up in a definitely Orange household and we never had corned beef or celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. Americans go crazy over the holiday, so I play along with the hype and make Hubby a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal each year. Gotta admit … it’s pretty darned tasty no matter your religion or politics!

Living on a boat, we try to be conscious of the use of our resources (water, propane, batteries). We love soups and stews in the winter, but using four hours of propane to boil corned beef is a bit much. So I did some research and found that it can be baked in half the time! It was absolutely delish … so tender and firm. I’ll never boil corned beef again!

Hubby and I both had moms that boiled the life out of dinner veggies, leaving a pile of tasteless mush on the plate and making us not a fan of peas, carrots, spinach, cabbage and Brussels sprouts in particular. Since learning to cook, I’ve found that when you can actually taste a vegetable’s true flavor it’s pretty good. (With the exception of kale. I’ve tried it every way known to man and we still don’t like it!) Since I was baking the corned beef, I figured “Why not roast the veggies?” The trick is in the timing … unless you are lucky enough to have two ovens. This method worked well with my tiny boat oven, but you may need to adjust the timing to get the right carmelization of the veggies.

This recipe serves two with a bit of leftovers. If you make it with a much larger corned beef to serve more people you will need to add more cooking time. You can increase the amount of veggies on a larger baking sheet without adding more time.

All of these items were purchased at the Alameda Grocery Outlet with the exception of the mustard and horseradish. I made the horseradish from root form and bought it from Dan’s Produce, which has the absolute best and freshest fruits and veggies on our island. When I venture to the east side of town, I always make a stop. Our GO has a nice produce variety and I especially like the packaged, pre-cut and cleaned veggies for quick meals. The carrots are amazing … 12 oz pack of organic rainbow babies. I used half for this recipe and ate the other half with hummus.

Variations: I mixed stone-ground and regular Dijon mustards. The regular was a honey-Dijon variety that we got as a holiday gift. There are all kinds of flavors that you could experiment with or just use one type or the other. I imagine you could also use plain old yellow mustard if that’s your preference, too.

We aren’t fans of the spice packets that come with most corned beef packages, so I just discard. If you like it, combine with the mustards before brushing over the beef.

I’ve been reading about the health benefits of turmeric and like to sprinkle it on veggies in general. It adds a slight nutty flavor without overpowering the veggie itself. If it’s not your thing, just skip it.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 to 3 lb corned beef
• 1/4 cup stone-ground Dijon mustard (plus more for serving)
• 1/4 cup regular Dijon mustard (plus more for serving)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 oz baby carrots
• 1/2 cabbage
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• Salt
• Olive oil or cooking spray
• Horseradish (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Remove the corned beef from the package, drain any liquid, rinse and pat dry.
• Place the beef, fat side up, in the center of two sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil that have been placed in a T-shape on a baking sheet.
• Combine the mustards and brush thickly over the beef.
• Sprinkle the brown sugar on top of the mustard.
• Gather the tin foil around the beef loosely, leaving an inch or so at the top before crimping closed.
• Place in center of oven and set timer for 1 hr, 45 minutes.
• While beef is cooking, prepare the veggies.
• Line a baking sheet with tin foil and brush with olive oil or spray with cooking oil.
• Cut the half head of cabbage into four wedges and place on baking sheet. Scatter carrots around wedges.
• Drizzle all with olive oil, sprinkle turmeric and salt over and set aside.
• When timer goes off, open the top of the tin foil gently, turn the oven up to broil and broil for 5 minutes or until the topping is browned.
• Move beef from oven to cooling rack, loosely re-tenting the tin foil.
• Place the veggies in the center of the oven and roast on broil for 5 minutes, then turn oven down to 450 degrees and roast another 5 minutes.
• Flip veggies, turn back up to broil and roast for 5 minutes.
• During this final 5 minutes of roasting, slice the corned beef against the grain and plate.
• Remove the veggies from the oven and place on plates.
• Serve with additional mustards and horseradish (optional).

Serves 2 with leftover corned beef to add to scrambled eggs the next morning or for sandwiches for lunch. 

A few pics of other great finds at our Grocery Outlet this week:

Chicken wings made 4 ways: herb seasoned, mango, Caribbean jerk, and buffalo, served with blue cheese dressing and leftover salsa/sour cream sauce

This was a fun find! A truffle “kit” that came with everything except the cream cheese. It took me about 15 minutes to whip these up and were a delicious and decadent dessert!

Go To Tuesdays are weekly recipes from products purchased at the Alameda Grocery Outlet, 730 Buena Vista Ave.

Please let me know if you made the recipe and liked it or would suggest changes. And also feel free to suggest future recipes.