My junior year of college I studied abroad in Galway, Ireland.  Well – not so much studied as occasionally stopped by classes.  It was an amazing semester and really cemented my love of everything Irish – culture, music, food, beer.  So even though St Paddy’s isn’t as big a deal in Ireland as it is here, I wanted to celebrate it in honor of the time I spent there.  And how do I celebrate holidays?  Dinner party!  So I loaded up a playlist with Flogging Molly, Young Dubliners, and The Corrs, and prepared to have some good craic.

For the main course – Corned Beef with Colcannon (mashed potatoes with cabbage).  The great thing about this is that you can throw all the veg into the pot with the beef and let it all cook together – easy!  So I started by putting carrots, celery, potatoes, and an onion into the bottom of the pot.

Mmm – veggies.  They can be rough chopped in big pieces because they will be discarded (except for the potatoes).  Since I was having people over I ended up doing two briskets – one in the slow cooker and one in a cast iron Dutch oven.  Same process, different cooking times.

I laid the corned beef on top of the veggies, pickling spices included.  You should be able to find corned beef vacuum packed with pickling spices in your grocery store, especially around St Paddy’s.  I cut the cabbage into wedges and put them on top/to the side of the beef.  That is half of a head in the picture, the other half went into the Dutch oven with the other brisket. (more…)