Oh meaty meaty goodness. If you are looking for a meal to impress a man this is it! There is nothing more satiating than a hearty serving of corned beef and cabbage and doubly so when the weather is as cold and dreary as it is right now. I made this the other night and have had it for breakfast lunch and dinner. I’m not one for repeat meals but I just can’t get enough. Yes I did say I ate it for breakfast, I will take it over cereal any day! Call me weird, we can still be friends I hope.  My vegan and vegetarian friends may want to overt their eyes on this post and to you I apologize. I do try to do days on end of meatless eating but it’s hard for me to go more than a week. I’m a hopeless carnivore.

Apparently St Patrick’s Day is around the corner and maybe that fact is what subconsciously made me want this. Hopefully by starting the celebrations early I will be extra lucky this coming month. March is going to be a big month for us. I’ll tell you why if you have a moment. If not then you might as well just scroll on down to the recipe to get started on dinner but I think you have time because you can literally chop of some vegetables in 5 minutes and be done… so March is awesome because of course it’s the last month of this cold and yuckiness and then we have SPRING! I can hardly contain myself to see some green on the trees and have nice grass for my dogs to roll around in! That will make everyone happy right?

For the Larsen residence specifically March will be the month when we will be approved by our agency to adopt a baby. Yeah it’s kind of a big deal. Our last meeting with our social worker is this coming Saturday and she will be examining our house, making sure I’m not a hoarder, have guns laying around the house or any meth labs in our garage…at least I suppose these are things she will check on. Luckily I called my drug lord contacts to remove these items from my premises, haha. I’m really not all that worried especially after meeting and talking to her for several hours about my pinterest page and favorite shopping destinations. Yes, my social worker is a real person. She likes nail polish and good bargains and has annoying roommates. We ate pizza and talked about “home life”, what my childhood was like, what my relationship with my parents and siblings are, and if I have any mental issues…hmm jury is out on that one. When I think about our life on paper we are so white bread. We are middle class, stable with two dogs in a nice house in a charming neighborhood. I think it sounds lovely, it is lovely. I hope it stands out though to a woman who will love and trust us enough to give their child to us.

We have a photo shoot scheduled March 10th for our adoption website and Dear Birth Mother letter. I’m really excited and nervous since these photos will speak a thousand words to potential mothers about who we are. With these photos they will be able to imagine themselves and their child in our family. I found a lovely photography company here in Charlotte (actually a friend on facebook is personal friends with them and messaged me after I assumed they would be too expensive, I took it as a sign!) www.loveshutter.com 

Corned Beef and Cabbage braised in Beer and Apple Juice

Ingredients:

Packaged corned beef with spice packet (2-3lbs)

4 Whole Carrots

1 Green Cabbage

1 Onion

4-5 Red Potatoes

4 Cups Apple Juice

1 Bottle Beer (preferably Irish- I actually used NewCastle)

Directions:

Chop your carrots into even sliced rounds. Quarter your onion and potatoes, core and quarter cabbage or into eighths so it will fit into your slow cooker. Put all the vegetables at the bottom of your slow cooker except some cabbage. Rub the spices in the provided packet into your beef and lay over vegetables. Pour in your beer and then apple juice until almost covered and top the remaining corned beef with the cabbage.

Cook on low 7-8 hours or high 4-5 hours.

It’s that easy. I was done in 5 minutes of preparation! The results are an extremely tender, melt in your mouth corned beef with really flavorful and slightly sweet vegetables. The corned beef is so amazing for leftovers making corned beef sandwiches, add a little swiss cheese, some kraut and mustard on rye bread and you have another wonderful and simple meal the next day. Like me if you want to eat it for breakfast then make it into corned beef hash! That doesn’t sound bad at all does it?

Just for giggles I wanted y’all to see how patient all my children are waiting for dinner. Kyro is such a ham, all he wants is to lay in someones lap and be loved on and eat whatever falls on the floor when I am cooking. Full on wars erupt over a rogue carrot slice between these two gluttonous dogs. I trip over them constantly when I’m scurrying from one counter to another. I was ready to give Kyro a good lashing when I saw he had completely scratched up several of my beautiful cabinets while trying to garner cheese from the counter…But look at those faces! Who can stay mad at those dopey eyes?