Corned Beef and Kraut

A St. Patrick's Day Feast

By Donna Smith

St. Patrick's Day is the Irish holiday honoring the missionary Saint Patrick, who is credited with converting the Irish to Christianity around 400 AD. Though this is a very important thing, it is not what most people think of when someone mentions St. Patrick's Day. The color green, shamrocks, leprechauns, four-leaf clovers and that lucky pot 'o gold are what most people associate with this day.

People all around the world celebrate St. Patrick's Day. On March 17, everyone is Irish! It is a day to wear green, have a good time and, of course, to eat. But what do you eat on this special day? If your idea of celebrating St. Patrick's Day is to squirt some green food coloring in your beer, you don't know what you've been missing. This year, prepare a feast that will make your family look forward to St. Patrick's Day as much as they do to Thanksgiving.

Don't let cooking a corned beef brisket scare you. It's very simple and does not require much fuss. Corned beef briskets come already cured and ready to cook. Most even come with their own little plastic bag of seasonings you can add to the cooking water.

Corned beef is a cut of beef that has been cured in a pickling solution, or brine. It's a tender cut of meat that is well marbled and very tender. The vegetables cooked along with the meat are usually carrots, cabbage and potatoes. The meat is simply boiled along with the vegetables, then removed, shredded and returned to the pot. Our Corned Beef and Vegetables

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