Confessions and Recipes (Happy Belated St. Paddy's Day!)

Let me start off by stating this in no uncertain terms.  I do NOT like beer.  I do not drink beer.  I think the stuff stinks and tastes nasty.  Are we clear on that?  Good. 

However, I do enjoy cooking with alcohol.  Beer, whiskey, wine, whatever.  I am willing to give all alcohols their equal opportunity in my kitchen to make awesome meals.  The alcohol cooks out and the fluids reduce leaving wonderful flavor.  Like my dinner tonight.  Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage served with Beer Batter Bread.

I've made the beef and cabbage several times over the past 5 years and always lamented pouring out half of a perfectly awful stinky beer.  Since hubby and I don't drink, I buy a single, rather large 24 oz  beer to avoid purchasing a 6 pack. This morning as I moaned over having nothing to do with the other half of the beer, I hopped onto one of my favorite recipe websites (AllRecipes.com) and searched for an easy to make beer bread.  The one I found is so tasty.  It has a nice yeasty flavor, no hint at all of beer.  WHEW!  I admit making a couple of changes to the recipe.  I left out the italian herbs and onion seasoning.  And, use REAL butter for the topping.  It says use margarine or butter.  Trust me when I say "use butter."  Everything is better with butter.  Everything.  I would not lead you wrong. 

While we are discussing buttter, let me add that I find I use less butter when I'm cooking.   It makes everything richer and taste better so you don't need as much to flavor your foods.  Take this morning for example, I used real butter to make scrambled eggs.  When I use margarine, I use a LOT (3-4 Tbsp) of it because I "brown" the margarine before putting the eggs into the pan. Margarine has lots of water in it, so it takes a LOT to make the eggs.  Today, I used 1 Tbsp of real butter.  It browned nicely and the boys said their eggs "tasted good Mom"... 

Enough about butter.  These are the recipes I used today.

The corned beef and cabbage recipe can be found at this link:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooker-corned-beef-and-cabbage/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=slow%20cooker%20corned%20beef%20and%20cabbage&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page    BTW, when I make the corned beef recipe I use 2 cups of water vs the 4 the recipe says to use. Then, I use 12 oz of beer instead of the recommended 6. Oh...and I use lots of veggies. We love the veggies. 



The beer batter bread can be found here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-beer-bread-mix/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=beer%20bread&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

Hope you enjoy these recipes if you try them.  If you are wondering, I used Bud Light. 

Coffee today?  Yes.  Most certainly.  In fact, I fininshed my pot of coffee before 3 pm today.  I considered making another pot, but I'm really trying to keep my coffee drinking under control.  I mean, seriously, a pot a day all by myself really should be enough.  Don't you think?  Oh, it was Community Coffee, Breakfast Blend, splenda and a splash of half and half.  Good stuff.  All day.  I need some now....  Anybody up for a Starbucks run?

Writing.  Yes.  I'm happy to say I wrote both morning and afternoon today...a grand total of 2.5 hours.  However, I did quality work and managed to write a total of 1,944 words.  Chapter 5 is complete (well, still needs some editing) and Chapter 6 has 999 words already.  I love that the computer counts the words for me.  :)

Seriously....anybody want to go to Starbucks?  I think we can beat the impending doom and gloom headed this way.  It's barely raining....  :)