The Kitchen Whisperer

Now we all know my stance on beer.. I hate beer.  Like you will never EVER catch me ordering a beer and drinking it on purpose.  Married to Mr. Fantabulous and him being a GIINORMOUS beer snob I’ve been ‘forced‘ to try umpteen different types with the line of “baby, maybe you’ll like this one.  If you loved me, you’d try it.”  My response is always “..and if you loved me you’d remember that they all taste like ass to me, smell like dirty feet and I gag every time I try one.  No, they suck so stop.  If YOU really loved me you’d figure out how to pick up your own clothes, put the dishes in the dish washer and figure out that vacuuming CAN be fun.” Sounds fair, right?  But like the good wife I give in to spousal pressure, take the god-awful sip, make the most funniest yucky squinched-up-7-year-girl-I’m-gonna-die face and then say that it still sucks.  LOL  Men, I swear they never listen! *wink*

But it’s funny though when it comes to cooking with beer.  The flavors tend to mellow and almost create this magical taste that only that nasty foul bottled stuff can give.  LOL  Yeah, sounds appealing, doesn’t it?  Now I’ve been making corned beef & cabbage since I was little.  I can remember my Mom making it on the stove top for hours on end.  When she got her first crock pot you would have thought Sweet Baby Jesus delivered it to her personally!  From then on, corned beef was made in the crock.  And as always it had beer in it.  Now back then (ya know, 100 years ago cause I’m old) she would use whatever we had on hand thus growing up as poor as we did it was typically the low end beers.  But we made do with what we had. Now as I got older and started to venture off on my own, expand my kitchen wisdom I tried to make it without the beer. This was before you could buy 4 packs or even single bottles. There was no way in the world I was buying a case of beer for just one bottle.  So I decided to make the corned beef without it.  It was just ‘ok’.  The meat was tender, it had flavoring but it just was lacking.  It didn’t have that depth you get from the beer.

So as I got even more older (now we’re talking 130 years) I decided to try different beers to see if that would change the flavor. UM YEAH… dramatically!  While I know nothing about beers I know that your typical Bud/Miller, etc don’t work well.  I hated the flavor.  But what I did find was that the stout beers – those darker beers, when cooked infused such an intense flavor that literally you find yourself being unable to stop eating the beef (case in point last night).  I actually had a slight tummy ache from eating so much!  Now it could have been the fact that I did something I NEVER do and that was pick all day while I was in the kitchen.  I never ‘graze’; it’s just not something I do but for some reason I had 9 bajillion bites of EVERYTHING.  By the time I went to bed last night I needed my super duper stretchy fat pants and some Crisco to grease my butt to fit through the doorway!  LOL

Anything you make in the crock pot is effortless. I think the hardest part is waiting (and resisting the temptation to pick up the lid).  A single pot to clean, no muss, no fuss.  Truth be told I have a slight-bordering not-so-slight addiction to crock pots.  I have *I think* 9 or 10 of them presently in my house.  SHUSH!  Don’t judge!  And yes, I use them all *glare*  LOL

Now typically most people eat their corned beef either with a mustard or a horseradish.  I decided to make a reduction sauce out it the juices.  I mean HELLO.. that’s some good stuff left in the pan and I bet 95% of you would just pitch.  WHY???

Seriously, MAKE THE SAUCE!  You will never want corned beef again without it!

Just LOOK how amazing that looks!

It’s super simple to make and I swear, makes the dish even more awesome-er!

So if you’ll excuse me I think I’m going to take some of that leftover corned beef and incorporate it into my breakfast – maybe a Reuben Pizza?  Maybe…