Menu Monday: Way Too Easy St. Patty's Day Dinner

I love holidays and many of them for food reasons, but I don't think I crave any holiday dinner like I do St. Patrick's Day fare. Turkey and sides are good but not my fav, a gorgeous ham is great but a finely cooked plate of corned beef and cabbage with a nice glass of Irish Beer is delish beyond words. The SADDEST thing ever is that some people hate it. I declare to you....if you hate it, you made it wrong! There is no way to hate this meal when it's done right. Still, it is an easy one to screw up royally and I have. I want to save you from that and take ALL the stress out of the process because I have found it one of the easiest dishes to make. WAY easier than Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner.

The fact is, corned beef on it's own is easy to get wrong, and cabbage on it's own is easy to get wrong. You don't want a tough meat, and you don't want soggy cabbage. Trust me, you're kids will learn to hate this meal if it comes out that way. I found a secret that allowed perfection ever time and my kids beg for more cabbage when it's done this way! All you need are two crock pots!

Many corned beef pkgs come with oven instructions....well, ignore them. Many call for boiling the meat which just KILLS me! Do you know what happens when you boil meat? All the flavor leaves and goes out into the water and unless you plan to make St.Patty's day SOUP, this is insane. All that briny goodness is going to be put to work to make your cabbage the best you have ever had, and you don't want to waste it! Boiled cabbage is just as gross so just throw that idea out the window as far as I'm recommending. The one time I followed their advice for the oven, I had tough meat that would not cut and no one wanted. If you have done it with success, please post your comment and suggestions and I may try again someday but my method is a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" for me. Also, it is so easy it could make you cry.

I use a very large crock pot for the meat and cabbage. I'm not sure the size, but this is the one I use:

I either use one large brisket or two small ones. Just put them from the package into the crock pot in the morning (around 8 am should do). SET ASIDE the seasoning pkg for a moment though that comes with the brisket.

Take one to two cabbages depending on size (remember, they shrink so use as much as your pot will hold..sometimes I put a heavy item on my crock lid if it's a tiny bit lifted from the cabbage to squish it down until it softens and falls...but don't leave a space or it won't cook right). Wash the cabbage and cut it in half lengthwise. Cut out the core at the bottom but only the core. Now cut each half in thirds or quarter large wedges depending on the size of the head. Take a moment to sprinkle half of the seasoning pkg on the meat. Simply keep wedges whole (separating them makes them cook too soon and the pieces fall down into the broth getting ...yep..soggy) and arrange tightly on top of the meat. Sprinkle remaining seasoning pkg. Don't add salt, or pepper or anything else! NO WATER! PLEASE....NO WATER!

Put the lid on and set on high for about a half an hour if you can and then set to low. If you are leaving just set to low. Around dinner time you should have perfectly falling apart corned beef and soft but textured and VERY flavorful cabbage. More on removing and serving below.

The potatoes should be small and red ones. Wash and half only if they are a bit large. If they are small, just leave them whole. I use my regular size crock pot for this. Mine is the blue one pictured here with the crock pot lady who btw has an great website I have down in my left hand links.

(I believe the ME one I have is comparable to the large one on the right so that gives you an idea...I'm sorry I don't have measurements for you!)

Just clean the potatoes and put them in with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of parsley if you like. Put on low and they will be perfect by dinner.

The soda bread has been my only problem. Last year I made a recipe that was more of a sweet bread and although it was good, I really wanted more authentic fare this time. I will be trying the traditional southern Ireland cake version demonstrated well here. The page also has a fun history of soda bread that you can read over or share with your kids. They usually like that kind of stuff and it makes the holiday a full adventure.

Serving the corned beef and cabbage I have a particular method that gives fuller flavor to the dish. About half an hour to an hour (depending on how well cooked your cabbage is) before serving open the crock pot and switch the order of the meat and cabbage. Just take the brisket out and let the cabbage fall down in the juices. Replace the brisket on top of the cabbage and put the lid back on. Again, don't do this long if your cabbage is pretty soft all ready. When you serve place the brisket on a platter and slice into portions. You can either surround it with the cabbage wedges and drizzle with the juices, or you can serve the cabbage in a bowl (my preference) and pour a great deal of the juices over them so they stay warm and still season at the table. The potatoes are pretty easy, just take them out and serve!

Top this off with a nice Guinness for you and the hubby and enjoy! If you like you can finish off with an authentic Irish dessert (suggestionshere (that Guinness cake looks good..mmm...or here) or just some green jello or ice cream. If you can manage an Irish cream coffee, that would be a great ending as well. Of course, put on some great Celtic sounds! Pandora is great for this and you can just start with Celtic Woman to get your station going.

We always finish off St.Patrick's Day with the reading of his story and watching the Veggie Tales short on St.Patrick found on the Sumo Of the Opera DVD. It's important, just like with the real St.Nicolas, for kids to know the heart and sacrifices these men made for the love of Christ. I believe Focus On the Family may even have a radio drama for St.Patrick. I'll have to confirm that but you may want to check out their website.

I get a special treat this year because Rick is off St. Patty's day! I'm looking forward to it and I'm planing on having the girls help me with the bread so they can learn.

Saturday Scraps: Family Newsie Stuff

Isn't my title eloquent?



Mmmm....news...what's the news.....well, God is good and life is crazy, but you probably came by for more than that so....



Basketball is Over:(

Though Princess is a bit relieved I'm sad it's over. It was fun to see her push her lack of athleticism and have a chipper sense of humor after her practices surged her body with lovely endorphins. It taught me, a mommy of tween, soon to be teen, a lesson....make sure they get exercise. In fact, I decided if I see it in her that noticeably, I should be convicted to do it myself! It was fun to go to the games and hear Rick yelling out of excitement to be back in some form of sports arena again. Though at the time I confess, I may have begged him not to yell so loud. I was worried the coach would think he was trying to take over his position from the bleachers. It was fun to see her in uniform and get out there and give it a try. Coordination has never been her strong suit but she really got better as she practiced. She learned a lot of lessons I've written about in previous posts concerning doing it because you love it and not because the other girls tell you you are bad or awesome.


Superkid's Life Lessons

Well, you can probably tell, we are not against boys playing with toy guns at our house. This is Superkid and his neighbor friend who is also in his class at school. They play many afternoons.

Superkid is in a time of great stretching in his life. He has never been a big fan of going to school but right now he is really not liking it. Having been former homeschoolers we are very sensitive to watching for signs for God to tell us to stay or to bring one or any of them back home. His will is always working and we want to be sensitive to it. In fact, I read a Focus On The Family article once that I totally dissagreed with. It was saying that parents should consider well which option is for their family but to stick to one and be consistant. I don't think that is so. I think every year, and every child and sometimes every month in the year has be be handled with prayer for direction. So, I have been talking more with his teacher, and talking more with him, and being in the classroom. He just is in a severely apathetic mode about school work at all. He is struggling with it with his homework so it does not seem to be confined to the classroom. It really could be summed up in a stage of the severe "I don't wann's". He tells his teacher he is bored. Being that academically he is at the top of his class, this may very well be true but when he does his work he has been doing it sloppy on purpose and taking his time on purpose and not focusing on doing the work when the teacher is walking around helping others. It's really just a disobedient phase of the heart. He also decided recently that the items at "store" time (when they get to spend the points they earn each week) are not worth his trouble (he asked me if the teacher could give them real money so they could go buy something they really wanted....ha! I don't think the world works that way dear!) so he stopped trying to earn them. So, we had a talk about doing things right as unto the Lord and not for any earthly reward. It makes me thankful, thought it's challenging, when school brings up these heart issues that we have to deal with because I know the Lord is working in his heart. We could just as easily have the same problem at home with him deciding that was boring and not wanting to do his work for me either. Right now he has a fantasy idea of homeschooling and thinks it means getting to watch more movies and rest during the day, or play with his Lego's all day long. By this point in my parenting I have a better incite into this "grass is always greener" element and am not as easily swayed to make quick decisions by it.

So, half of it is his heart issues, but the other half is the decline of the public schools, plain and simple, especially when it comes to the early grades. In fact, Rick and I were talking that if we had any more kids younger, we don't know how they would survive, boys especially, in the classroom. It's not really the fault of our particular school but state legislators are to blame. The classroom sizes are crazy big, again, especially for this age. Last year Superkid's teacher had 15 or so kids, and this year there are 28-29. Next year she said they are projecting 30. Now, you can run a class of 4th, 5th or 6th graders at that number, but I don't believe in doing that for the young ones. I can attest, being the one to go in and give the assessments, that 2/3 of the class cannot read yet. The teacher is doing all she can but she is up against the obstacle of not enough resources, time, and one-on-one opportunities. Not to mention a plethora of parents who don't care and children who come from challenging circumstances such as exposure to drugs in uturo, fetal alcohol, and homes where reading to your kids just does not happen. With the class size that big, and the obstacles, THEN you have the state mandating what all to cram down their little throats in the time you have. There is not time for art or music or hands on learning, though I know some teachers at our school say fooie to the state because frankly, they are near retirement anyway and don't believe in the new philosophy of education. They (the state) don't realize they are drowning themselves because by pushing more, the kids are getting less. Especially at these ages when their brains are developing on many different levels and their information and learning are gleaned in many different ways. A kindergartner, 1st or 2nd grader does not learn efficiently by sitting in a desk for 6 hours and having you cram stuff into him all day by lecture, pen and paper. His brain just will block off 75% or so of what you dish out. Then, you move on, because the state tells you you have to and little Johnny didn't get what you last did so he is not anywhere able to get the next step. They end up floating around a early 1st grade level until their brains naturally catch up by means of every day life and experience really. The sad thing, is that once their brains wake up to some things, many important academic building blocks are missing for their further education and they end up either always being behind, or having to learn to wing it most of the time.

Where Superkid sits in his development is the only thing that keeps us from yanking right now, well, that and God's directing us. He gets the academics very well. He just needs more creative time. If he lacked in the academics I would have no choice but to bring him back home because he would NOT be getting the education he needed. Even the sweet Christian teachers that we love have their hands so tied (unless they are rebels at heart enough to not care like I said before). They are working with a near impossible set of circumstances.

So, we have been praying about this and right now we feel he should stay. Mainly because the lessons HE is needing to learn are in the area of listening to directions and being diligent in his school work. The scale is near tipping though and if it were not two months till the end of the school year, I may feel differently. I will not criticize parents who put their boys on meds because that is a personal decision but Rick and I agreed when we went home to public, that if he ever got to that "oh, he's ADD" point, and it effected his education, he would come home. Superkid is at that point (as it would be defined medically, but we happen to think it's more the way God created boys) but he is a reclusive ADD (if we were going to label, which we aren't), meaning that he sits there but zones out and goes far away in his imagination. He is not very loud or disobedient by bugging others or getting out of his seat or anything. So it becomes a question of time. Will he make it to the end of the year? We feel he should. We on the other hand are focusing on some character building and making sure he gets some creative time at home and outside time as well. It's really quite sad the schools are headed this way because it makes it hard for many mom's like me, who are not feeling God has called them to homeschool at the time, or don't do well balancing it with the rest of their responsibilities. Right now we are having to trust that God has a purpose for him to learn some things even though the situation is not ideal. The same could be said of homeschooling. There are always pro's and con's so all you can really do is let the Lord lead.

We really want to hold out for next year because he would have the teacher Lilo had that we really loved. She is one who is brave enough to do what she thinks is good for the kids in her classroom and not what is good for the state. They make fossils, build art projects, grow butterfly gardens and watch them metamorphosis there, and get up and sing songs and dance around many times in the day. After that, well....one year at a time, one prayer at a time!

Oh! I did want to mention the other thing that happened that the Lord used to show us he is where he needs to be right now. Superkid was playing four square with his friends and he did not really know how to play. He bounced the ball too many times and the kids told him he was out. He felt they should let him stay because he did not know the rules, and he was upset they told him he was out. His eyes filled with tears and his face scrunched up when he told us this. Now, at home Superkid is not only the only boy, he is the baby, and for many years he has been catered to in ways we don't even realize (yes, probably mostly by me), so my first reaction that I immediately knew I had to fight off, was to agree with him! BUT, this is one way school is good for him! He is learning that life does not bend the rules to make you feel better about yourself. You WILL get out sometimes. It's time to grow up a bit and be okay with that. So, we got a ball and his sisters got outside with him at home teaching him how to play. That way at least he can get with the game. Yet, the real lesson here was a social one that he really needed.

Wow, I kind of took up my Saturday Scraps with Superkid! And, I'm kind of out of time to blog so I guess that will have to be it for today! Have a blessed Saturday!

Coming this week (Lord willing and health/time permitting:):

• My easy way to lovely Corned beef and cabbage- gotta love St.Patty's day!
• Putting together the girls new decor in their room- I'm hoping for pics.

I Need Help!

Many of you know we painted the girls room a gorgeous (well, I think so) violet blue about two years ago or so. It's pretty close to the color in the bottom left corner of this:

My original inspiration was this magazine cover that I loved:

Here is what we ended up with in 07 (though it's a dark picture, the wall color is much brighter):With their white old french provincial furniture and lavender and white bedding it was beautiful. Now there are some changes taking place that are leading us from the Victorian shabby version of this to the bold tween version of it.

1. Princess has a college style loft bed now. Our goal was to eventually get them both on lofts so that they could have something like "their own room". Her loft has a built in huge desk and shelf and we have storage shelves and drawers under it for her stuff. Lilo will be getting one next (I'm crossing my fingers for a 50 dollar white one on Craigslist right now. The problem with loft beds is the bedding. You really don't want to have to have complicated bedding to make. The easiest way to do this is to have a bottom sheet, no top sheet, and a comforter with a duvet. That way you just wash the bottom sheet and the duvet. That is what I need help with.

The duvets need to match. They need to have a bold floral pattern that has bold Easter like colors in them. I don't really want to buy them, I would prefer to make them from sheet sets. Fabric is harder because you have to have seam lines since the fabric is not wide enough (unless someone can educate me on a trick I don't know). Here are some images to get your brain where mine is headed:

Zero in on the floral.

Think....gerber daisy....

I may need it to have some gold in it too.....

2. We picked up some clearance curtain panels at Walmart for 2 bucks! They were a great deal seeing that you got two panels for that price. I was thinking of putting a fabric flower at each segment at the top to dress them up a bit. They go to the floor so they are dramatic. One of my quandaries is whether I can go with the bold yellow or if I should die them. Any opinions? They look pretty good next to the violet blue but they do set the tone for some wild fabric bedding and accessories!

3. The girls are going into different modes of life. Well, especially Princess. How I want the room is fading into how THEY want the room. Magazine clippings, CD's, projects and Taylor Lautner posters (well, one, yes my daughter is a Twilight fan...so you can start shooting at me now :). Lilo, though not in this phase yet (in fact she has never been in the boy admiring phase, she is more into bugs still) has always preferred bold and crazy over subdued and girlie. So, it will work for both of them. I guess you could say the wall, and the fabrics are all I'm doing and then I'm letting them loose as long as it's neat!

It's a phase I thought would take a while to get to...but nope.

So, help me out! I need suggestions. Let me know if you see anything around or online too.

Thankful Thursday

It's been a trying week but I'm thankful God is totally in control because it really does matter, you know!

• I'm thankful to be feeling better. I've not had bad weird symptoms for a week and a half and that's great. I'm thankful it's all helping me make better choices with my health.


• I'm thankful for seeing God work in my children. Even when problems surface and we have to deal with them, it's evidence of him working in their hearts and that's good to know.


• I'm thankful for sunshine.


• I'm thankful my husband always tries to do what is best for us.


• I'm thankful for good meat sales lately:).


• I'm thankful I got to go to a movie with the kids yesterday, we don't get to do that more than a few times a year. It was a great spontaneous way to spend the afternoon because of minimum day.


• I'm thankful God is faithful to lead us when we are not sure where we should go. Even when I feel I'm standing still, he is working to lead.


• I'm so thankful my mom's new job seems to be going well and that God has provided for her in this way.


• I'm thankful my life is pretty simple.