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Corned Beef – Sous Vide Edition
I used a vacuum sealing bag to corn the brisket. Morton’s Tender Quick plus various spices made up a dry rub that was spread on both sides before sealing. I gave it a week before removing the meat, rinsing the excess salt off, and resealing in another bag.
I was shooting for 10 hours at 180 degrees per a recommendation by J. Kenji López-Alt at The Food Lab. He does a lot of good work over there and I highly recommend the site. Alas, the bag appeared to be failing in that very hot water bath after a few hours so I pulled it out, cut it in two, and resealed for another go at a reduced temp. I let it go overnight at 155 degrees, and fared much better.
This is one of the halves after a day in the fridge to firm it up for slicing. I think the other half will go to the freezer in the same bag it cooked in.
I need a recipe for thousand island dressing – that’s the only thing on the plate I didn’t make, bake, ferment, or pickle.
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Sammich Pr0n – Reuben
This is what I had in mind for the leftover corned beef from that corned beef and cabbage dinner. I put the bread with the meat and cheese in the press to melt the cheese and toast the rye, adding the ‘kraut and dressing at the table.
Pressure Cooker Corned Beef
![20160317_131753[1] (1600x1060)](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/20160317_1317531-1600x1060.jpg)
In a slow cooker it’s an 8 hour project. It takes several hours to boil one atop the stove. In my Instapot pressure cooker it took 90 minutes for the meat, and the veggies just a few minutes. There is additional time involved reaching temperature, and some spent winding down but this corned beef was so good I ran back to Kroger’s for two more that I’ll cook today to chill and slice for sandwiches.
Tidbits
Gail, a six month old kitten, was introduced to her her new staff yesterday. After her approval she allowed her new chauffeur to convey her to her new domain.
We have no idea what this is. It’s about the size of a softball and is made of various fibers.
I suppose it’s possible that it’s just a windblown ball of fluff that has been caught by the branch but it does appear to have been purposely anchored there by several loops of the same fibers as it is built of.
Mmm… sloppy joes! I made a quick bean salad with a rice vinegar and olive oil dressing to go with it – based loosely on this recipe.
I made corned beef the other day and ran the butt ends and scraps through a food processor just for this hash dish. Frozen shredded potatoes make it a quick and delicious meal. That’s hot sauce on the egg, I like a dash of Tabasco on mine. 
Gumbo is always a good idea. This one has shrimp, chicken, and some of my homemade Andouille. I still have a little bit left, sealed in vacuum bags and frozen. Vacuum sealing is working out very well, pleased to have rediscovered the method.
I made a quick batch of Italian sausage from some plain ground pork because I had my heart set on some and found none at all in the freezer. I was sure I had some!![20160130_114847[1] (1600x1060)](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/20160130_1148471-1600x1060.jpg)
I’ll make kitteh bookends to the post with this snap of Bea. The cats have shredded the carpet on this old cat tree so Mrs J set it outside on the back porch, pending remediation.
Sammich Pr0n- Corned Beef
![20160118_152117[1] (1600x1060)](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/20160118_1521171-1600x1060.jpg)
I put this photo up the other day as a riff on using the cold weather to cool baked items. It’s a loaf of rye bread. When it cooled thoroughly I wrapped it and placed it into the freezer until today.
A decent looking loaf! I used it to serve up some reuben sandwiched for lunch:
Tidbits
I suppose I should open with the Christmas Dinner – the rib roast worked out nicely for us and I’m tickled because it was my first time doing one. We followed, loosely, the Serious Eats recipe, including the ox tail in red wine for the jus. I’m a little bummed, I made a nice dressing to go with this and left it, forgotten, in the basement fridge until too late.
I went ahead today and cooked it, I’ll portion it out and freeze it, then vacuum seal it for later. It, too, is a recipe from the Serious Eats folks. I had even used my own patio grown sage for the seasoning:![20151224_085628[1] (1600x1060)](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/20151224_0856281-1600x1060.jpg)
I picked a paper sack full of leaves from the container plant and let them dry atop the freezer, a nice out of the way spot that stays warm due to the heat exchange system built into the walls of the box. The food processor made short work of them, reducing the sackful to the not-quite-powder that they label as “rubbed sage” in the retailer’s spice rack.
Mrs J took a snap of Ginger this afternoon, and it got me to searching for the pictures we took of him and his siblings right after they had been dumped at the neighbor’s house:
This was taken in October of 2013, they are Ginger’s litter mates but Ginger isn’t among them, we didn’t capture him until 3 or 4 days later – he had evaded the initial round-up. Mrs J took him to our vet for an evaluation and the vet tech said he hadn’t had anything but grass and leaves to eat for a while. 
Here’s a ham and Swiss on rye, lightly grilled. I have a nice beef top round brining in the basement and I wanted to try a couple of rye bread recipes in the machine. This was a light rye with caraway seeds. Should be perfect for the corned beef-to-be.
I mentioned in a post this spring that a neighbor bought a couple of swans they were going to raise along with the goats they’ve been keeping. I was driving past their place when I looked out the window at the goats browsing on their pond dam and had to do a double take – those swans are nearly as big as the goats!
Here’s a different angle on that rib platter. Mrs J is wishing we had bought another one to put back, this one was so good.
Mmm… Corned Beef and Cabbage
I saved some of the water leftover from simmering that corned beef and used it today to boil the traditional veggies for the dish. The beef slices were warmed separately.
