Happy St. Patrick's Day

I love corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day. This year, I made my favorite recipe by local chef Brendan McGill. I've been making this recipe on St. Patrick's Day since it was featured in the Seattle Times in 2018. Even if you don't completely follow the recipe in detail, it still turns out GREAT. That's how good a recipe it is. I know this because that's exactly what happened this year. I only followed bits and pieces of the recipe and it was still outstanding. We celebrated our St. Patrick's Day on Saturday because we were with Lauren and Dustin in Oregon for a little ski trip over the weekend. It was a Christmas present from them so they rented a really cute A-frame cabin in the woods close to the Mt. Hood ski areas. Unfortunately, the snow conditions were not that good but they had one day together skiing and had a wonderful time together.

My ski days are over since I've had knee issues a long time so on this day, I checked out of the rental cabin after they left bright and early for skiing and then I met them up on the mountain for lunch before we all headed home. The day before is when we had our St. Patrick's Day dinner. Dustin went up the mountain in the morning to check out the ski area to confirm the ski conditions were bad...and they were, so we went hiking on a trail near the cabin while he was gone.

We love hiking so it was still fun even though the ski conditions weren't so good for skiing.

When Dustin returned, we went on another hike while the corned beef cooked back at the cabin.

And then it was time to build a fire and hang out in the hot tub.

It was hit and miss with the corned beef recipe since we were in and out all day but we eventually added in the potatoes, carrots and cabbage and it all turned out fabulous by the time were were ready to eat. I also brought a loaf of my Irish Soda Bread to complete the meal. I basically just cooked the corned beef in the oven at 275 degrees F, a lot lower than the recipe but still added the Guiness beer. It cooked a lot longer because we were gone much of the day but it was fine. Like I said, even if you don't follow the recipe exactly, this recipe is still a big winner.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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