1. Debbie and I were in charge of tonight's St. Patrick's Day family dinner.
Because we had a larger than usual turnout, dinner itself was at Carol and Paul's.
I don't know if someone had requested we make a corned beef dinner, but I do know that since I would be home all day, I was in charge of cooking tonight's main entree.
I had purchased a corned beef roast at Costco about a week ago.
I read some recipes about how to cook it. I had decided to roast it in the oven rather than the slow cooker, mostly because of the size of the roast and number of vegetables I'd be cooking with the meat.
I'd never cooked corned beef before, so it was with a sense of mild trepidation that I took the roast and the seasoning pack out of the packaging.
I prayed to some Irish saint of cabbage to look over me as I got things going and hoped for the best.
2. I placed the corned beef roast in our larger Dutch oven with about 24 oz of Better than Bouillon mixed with hot water. I preheated the oven at 325 and set the timer for two hours and fifteen minutes so that I could remove the roast and put the carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and onion in with the roast before my video conversation with the money pro advising me about my IRA. (That conversation went well -- all is fine.)
I can't remember exactly when I next checked the meat and vegetables. Let's say it was about an hour or so later and I could tell the vegetables needed a little more time. The next time I checked, the vegetables were on the verge of being over cooked, but I had an instinctive feeling the meat needed more time in the oven.
I removed the vegetables, put them in mixing bowls with lids, and gave the meat another --I should have taken notes -- maybe another hour or so.
I then took the meat out of the Dutch oven, cut the roast in half, cut a slice off of one of the halves, and determined while praying to the Irish saint of corned beef, that the corned beef was ready. I let it rest for a while, sliced the roast, covered the platter with aluminum foil, and prayed to the Irish saint of leniency and acceptance that my fellow family members would find the way I cooked the meat and vegetables acceptable.
3. Evidently all those Irish saints saw fit to look over my efforts and I am eternally grateful to them for their kindness.
Our dinner went great.
After some Irish Rusty Nails and pretzels with Guiness beer cheese dip for an appetizer, all present took their assigned seats around the dinner table. Brian, Molly, Zoe, Carol, Paul, Christy, Debbie, and I began passing the corned beef slices, the accompanying carrots, onion, cabbage, and potatoes, and the whole wheat and white Irish soda bread that Zoe baked around the table and for a few seconds everything fell silent.
That's rare at our family dinners!
The silence relieved me.
It seemed that the silence was the soundlessness of everyone enjoying the food I prepared and I know we all loved Zoe's Irish soda bread.
Quite a bit of tonight's conversation focused on Molly and Brian getting ready to move to Boise and what they expected and hoped to find as far as a place to live and where to have fun. We also continued to learn more about Molly's job.
We finished dinner and then Christy provided the evening's coup de grace: she baked a peerless Chocolate Guiness Bundt Cake with an Irish Cream glaze.
I knew she'd baked this cake and thought a cup of coffee would taste really good with it -- so I asked Paul to brew some coffee.
I was right!
The cake was fantastic and the coffee was awesome alongside it.
If I weren't doing my best to lower my weight, I would have eaten as much of this cake as was available after everyone else had theirs.
Maybe none was available.
I wouldn't let myself be tempted!
Whatever.
This cake was perfect.
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