Beef barley soup, corned beef hash, and Rueben sandwiches were made with our leftover corned beef

Our mom is currently in the hospital receiving care for the side effects from the chemo-like drug she is taking to hopefully prolong her life in her fight against metastasizing melanoma. So, even when she is not in the hospital, my sisters and I usually try to bring meals to our parent’s house or cook something there. On Friday my sister Nancy bought a huge corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots to make a traditional corned beef and cabbage meal for our father and anyone else that happened to be at our parent’s house at dinnertime.  And, I bought the same things to make my family the traditional dinner on St. Patrick’s Day.  It should come as no surprise, between the two houses, we had a lot of left over corned beef.

When I prepared the corned beef at my house I cooked mine in my slow cooker. I removed the visible fat from the outside of the meat. I put the spices in a cheesecloth pouch so the little round balls (I think they are peppercorns) wouldn’t surprise us later when eating the cabbage or the soup that I planned to make. Instead of using plain water to cover the corned beef, I used the beef version of Better Than Bullion, which would be like a beef stock or broth. I also added a couple of carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. These were added to add flavor to the meat while the meat cooked–the veggies tend to get too mushy if they are cooked the duration of the time the meat is cooked. Just about an hour before the meat was done I added the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage that we would eat with the meat. If you do this and the meat is done cooking and you need to add the veggies, just remove the meat and put it in an oven safe covered dish with some of the broth in a 200 degree F oven to keep it warm while the veggies cook.

Beef barley soup was made with the leftover broth, beef, and veggies

After we ate dinner I began to make soup to freeze for meals on other days.  I strained the mushy veggies that cooked with the meat from the broth and coarsley chopped the mushy veggies. I added the chopped veggies back to the broth and added about a 3/4 cup of pearl barley. I brought the broth to a boil and simmered about 45 minutes until the barley was soft. I cut up some of the corned beef and added it to the soup. I also cut up some of the cooked carrots, cabbage, and potatoes and added them. Had I remembered, I would have added a bit of red wine.

Corned beef hash was made with the leftover corned beef

Yesterday morning I made corned beef hash and eggs with some of the leftover meat. To do this I cut up four red potatoes with skins on into cubes. I boiled the potatoes until they just started to soften, which was about 7 minutes. I finely chopped 1/2 red onion and sautéed the onion in olive oil in an oven proof skillet until they just started to brown. I chopped up five slices of corned beef. I preheated the oven to 450 degrees F. I drained the potatoes and then added them and the chopped meat to the skillet with the onions and cooked until the potatoes began to brown. During the cooking I seasoned with pepper, garlic salt, and a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper.  I cracked eggs onto the top of hash and seasoned them with salt and pepper, covered with a lid and put the skillet in the preheated oven. I baked the hash and eggs until the eggs were cooked the way I like them (yokes hard). Instead of cooking the eggs in the oven, some people will place poached eggs on top of the hash. The poached eggs placed on the hash are aesthetically more appealing, however, I was pressed for time and found this method much faster.

Rueben sandwiches were made with the leftover corned beef

Yesterday for lunch there was a gang of people to feed at our parent’s house, so Nancy and I made Rueben sandwiches with the corned beef Nancy made for our father on Friday. To make the sandwiches we used rye bread, sauerkraut, Havarti cheese (Swiss works well too), Thousand Island dressing, and slices of the corned beef.  To make the sandwiches we buttered the bread and in this order we added the cheese, corned beef, Thousand Island dressing, and sauerkraut–and of course the second piece of bread. We then grilled the sandwiches. We usually use a sandwich press to make them, but did not have one handy, so we placed a piece of foil on top of the grilling sandwich and placed a cast iron skillet on top to press it.  We normally use marbled rye to make the sandwiches, but all of the stores Nancy went to in search of bread were out. One store was even completely out of dark rye. It appears a lot of other people were making sandwiches with their corned beef as well.

Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, dark rye bread, Havarti cheese, and corned beef were used to make the Reuben sandwiches

All of this and we still have leftovers!

Happy Monday to you all.

~merry~