Late St. Patrick's Day Dinner

We managed to have our late St. Patrick's Day dinner last weekend.  I was crazy sick the whole week before.  Luckily, I was on the mend in time to disinfect the house and get the corned beef, root vegetables and dessert parfaits together.  Our friends brought over an insanely beautiful bouquet from the farmer's market in downtown Wiesbaden.  If you're curious about Alton Brown's corned beef that I blogged about making here, I thought it turned out great!  We didn't have the salt peter necessary for the nice, pink color that most corned beef has, but the flavor was great!  I also served root vegetables with a garlic herb butter.  I had never tried parsnips before.  They're kind of like a mild carrot.  Interesting stuff.

My favorite part of the meal *because I'm a sugar junky* was the mint fudge brownie parfaits.

YUM!  I found the recipe at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  It's a great blog!  I searched a ton of stores (a friend did a lot of searching for me, too) for cute jars to make these guys in, but it didn't work out.  Apparently caning/jarring isn't super popular in Germany in early spring.  Hopefully I'll manage to snag a few dozen during the summer months.  I even had some cute green ribbon to tie around the jars...next year!  This year I had to make due with regular glasses.  I think they turned out pretty cute :)

Thanks to a friend we even had some delicious Irish Soda Bread. She brought it pretty much straight of the oven and it was amazing.  Here's a picture.

*****EDITED TO ADD*****
Meredith's Irish Soda Bread Recipe!
Irish Soda Bread
prep time: 15 min / cook time: 50 min
Ingredients
    •    4 cups all-purpose flour
    •    4 tablespoons white sugar
    •    1 teaspoon baking soda
    •    1 tablespoon baking powder
    •    1/2 teaspoon salt
    •    1/2 cup margarine, softened
    •    1 cup buttermilk
    •    1 egg
    •    1/4 cup butter, melted
    •    1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions
    1.    Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
    2.    In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with 1/4 cup buttermilk; brush loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.
    3.    Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 30 to 50 minutes. You may continue to brush the loaf with the butter mixture while it bakes.
 *****End Edit*****

Another friend brought over a really great cake with berries baked into it.  I didn't manage to get a good picture of it but it was lovely!

I'm sorry that this post wasn't super exciting.  I'll be posting new pictures of our house and of course silly stories about my kids this week.  :)

Corned Beef

Will and I caught an episode of Alton Brown's show on Food Network around this time last year.  He was making his own corned beef.  We decided that the next (this) St. Patrick's Day would be a great chance to try making our own corned beef.  Well, yesterday I made the brine and trimmed the massive 8.5 lb brisket we bought from the commissary.  It's insanely easy.  The biggest issue for us was the fact that our commissary isn't very well stocked with herbs and spices, so we had to go looking at the German store, Real.  We love Real, but spices have VERY different names in German than they do in English.  We spent a good twenty minutes in the spice aisle before we left with the correct spices. 

We're celebrating St. Patrick's Day a couple of days after the 17th because I'm going in for another sleep study on the actual holiday.  The beef needs to sit in the brine for 10 days.  I'll be posting a follow-up once it's done in the brine and it's been cooked and served.  It's a five star recipe on Food Network and it has 57 reviews.  Pretty impressive, Alton ;) 

Ingredients

• 2 quarts water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons saltpeter  *We used Morton's Meat Tenderizer*
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 8 whole cloves
• 8 whole allspice berries
• 12 whole juniper berries
• 2 bay leaves, crumbled
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 pounds ice
• 1 (4 to 5 pound) beef brisket, trimmed *In my case, 8.5lbs, so I did 1.5 of everything in the recipe*
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 1 large carrot, coarsely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped

Directions

Place the water into a large 6 to 8 quart stockpot along with salt, sugar, saltpeter, cinnamon stick, mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and ginger. Cook over high heat until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the ice. Stir until the ice has melted. If necessary, place the brine into the refrigerator until it reaches a temperature of 45 degrees F. Once it has cooled, place the brisket in a 2-gallon zip top bag and add the brine. Seal and lay flat inside a container *I had to use a rubbermaid container and use a smaller container to weigh down the meat because it wouldn't fit in any ziplock bag*, cover and place in the refrigerator for 10 days. Check daily to make sure the beef is completely submerged and stir the brine.
After 10 days, remove from the brine and rinse well under cool water. Place the brisket into a pot just large enough to hold the meat, add the onion, carrot and celery and cover with water by 1-inch. Set over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and gently simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the meat is fork tender. Remove from the pot and thinly slice across the grain.

*My notes in asterisks

Side Note:

Will brought these home for me yesterday :)  Such a sweet thing to do.  I am spoiled.