Better than French Onion Soup- Smoke & Spice

I bought this cookbook for Shawn not long after he got his smoker.  Its a damn good cookbook, with great recipes, explanations, and variations.  Easter dinner was a few days ago and, at Shawn's request, we made a tray of smoked mac & cheese.  I was baking the ham and we were left with an interesting and not often found situation: an empty tray on the smoker.  I have to say, I was giddy about this.  What a fun opportunity to try something out!!  I poured through the book, looking at side dishes and options.  I settled on this French Onion soup variation mainly because Shawn loves the soup.  The recipe calls for smoked onions, which can easily be done.  At first, I tried to figure out the timing of the recipe, to allow the onions to be smoked and the soup to be made with enough time for it to be an appetizer.  We eventually decided that we had enough food for the meal and I simply smoked up the onions and a few heads of garlic for future use. 

This process was amazingly simple and something that I'll probably do whenever we have a spare tray for a few hours.  I rubbed the whole, unpeeled onions, and whole, unpeeled, heads of garlic with a touch of oil and they were ready.  Easy enough, right?  They sat in the smoker for a little over an hour and probably could have been in for up to 45 minutes longer without affecting the ingredients.  Peeling them was interesting.. I let them sit for about an hour to cool.  The oil on the onions and the moisture from smoking them made them a little slippery.  I would use a sharper knife next time, to save on the effort, and just be super careful.  The garlic was simply gorgeous and I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to do with it. 

Two days later I had completely forgotten about these items sitting in my fridge.  I went to heat up some leftover escarole with garlic as a snack and it occured to me that the onions would make a tasty addition to my snack.  In case you're curious, it was.  The onion was still a little firm, but the sweetness was perfect.  No bitterness at all, just tasty sweet onion.  I remembered my original thought, to make the onion soup, and realized that the day old slices of bread that came with the escarole would be the perfect soup crouton!  Pure genius!  I quickly changed up our original dinner plans and we went forward with the new one. 

I started by heating up my non stick dutch oven.  This is one of my absolute favorite pans and it was totally free with an Acme promotion last year.  Go figure.  Anyways, I heated up the pan and added the sliced onions for a touch.  Once they started sweating, I added a 1/4 cup of merlot and let it sautee in for a few minutes.  The recipe calls for homemade beef stock.  I didn't have that, but had about 3 cups worth of homemade pork stock so I used it instead.  I needed 3 more cups of broth and only had one can of beef broth and one can of chicken, so basically my soup was a potpourri of meat flavoring.  I added a tablespoon of barbeque sauce, even though I thought it strange, and some dried thyme, smoked salt, and black pepper.  Let it all simmer for almost an hour and tried it out.  It needed... something.  That something was a touch more red wine and a little more salt.  Perfect!! 

To make the actual soup, I pulled out 2 soup crocks that were given to us as a gift years ago.  I love these two bowls because I know they're oven friendly and they have the little handles on the sides that make it so easy to transfer from oven to countertop.  The handles cool very quickly, too, which is great.  I added the soup to each bowl and topped it with the stale bread.  I topped with a slice of provolone cheese and then sprinkled shredded swiss on top.  It went in the broiler for a few minutes and was finished. 

A lot of the broth soaked up into the bread, so I added more to my bowl to compensate for it about halfway through my meal.  The broth was really tasty!  The red wine gave it just the right balance and the BBQ sauce and black pepper gave a light touch of heat.  The bread and cheese were amazing, as all bread and melted cheese is.  The only thing I would change is that there were too many onions.  They were tasty, but it was too much in proportion to everything else.  Overall, I'd call the soup a success!

Given my current pregnancy and various degrees of laziness and queasiness, I've been making efforts to freeze meals whenever possible.  Instead of keeping the soup for leftovers, I froze the remainder for a future meal and will probably add more beef broth when I heat it up.  Looking forward to a quick and easy meal in my future!

Better than French Onion Soup- Smoke & Spice
Serves 4 as a main course, or 6 as appetizers
4 medium onions
vegetable oil
6 cups beef stock, preferably homemade
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 Tbsp not-too-sweet BBQ sauce
1 tsp dried thyme
salt to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 slices crusty bread
1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese

1.  About 3 hours before you plan to eat the soup, prepare the smoker for barbequing, bringing the tem to 200-250F.
2.  Rub the onions with a thin coating of oil and place them in the smoker.  Cook until the skins are well browned and the onions feel soft, about 1 1/2 hours.  When the onions are cool enough to handle, peel them and slice them thin.
3.  Place the onions in a saucepan and add the stock, wine, sauce, thyme, salt & pepper.  Simmer for 45 minutes.
4.  Preheat the broiler.  Toast the bread. 
5.  Spoon the hot soup into 4 ovenproof bowls.  Top each portion of soup with a piece of toast and some of the cheese.  Broil briefly until the cheese is melted.  Serve immediately. 

Matzoh Ball Soup

I grew up eating matzoh ball soup.  I also grew up with latkes, macaroons, bagels and lox, kasha varnishkes, and those little chocolate covered raspberry gel thingies.  My mothers side of the family is (was) Jewish and while I never went to Hebrew school or went to temple, the food was part of my childhood.  We celebrated all holidays when I was growing up but I always related more to the Christian side and found myself learning in that direction as I got older.  Now that my mom is gone, as well as that side of my family, I don't really celebrate my Jewish roots as much as I should.  This isn't me saying that I'm changing this or making any life altering statements... its just a little insight to me and my background.  I do love the food, though.  There is no comfort food that can bring me back to childhood more than some matzoh ball soup.  I tried making my own once when I was just out of college.  It was good, not great, but I was the only person in my house that would eat it and it was a hell of a lot of work.  It was a long time before I had the urge to try again. 

I never got my mom's recipe before she passed away.  Not that hers was the best ever, but matzoh balls are specific.  My mom made hers like her mom and her grandmom and we like ours the same way because its what we grew up with.  We like them fluffy.  Dense ones are tasty, too, but not what I know.  Its not what I'm looking for when I need more than just soup.  When I need to connect with my childhood and my mom.  When you don't live in the area that you grew up in and you lose the family that you knew, its hard to go back to your childhood and your memories.  I didn't realize that right away.  The year after my mom died, a coworker was making soup for her passover sedar.  We talked a bit about it and she told me that her secret was club soda "to make them fluffy".  One thing that I do remember about my family's method was that it definitely included this.  She was kind enough to bring some in for me.  This was when I learned about food and memories.... I couldn't bring myself to eat the soup.  I was an emotional crazy woman for a day and a half, not realizing why, while this container of soup just sat there in my fridge.  I finally realized what was going on and sat down, alone, to cry and eat my bowl of soup.  It was perfect and made me love, miss, connect, remember.... every feeling on the planet.  All in a bowl of soup. 

I've been wanting to attempt my own version for over a year now.  I've had it in restaurants and its always good, but not what I'm looking for.  For this, I don't want to use a recipe.  I've been searching different recipes, taking little bits from them and using what I already know to create my own.  One that pays tribute to what I remember and one that I can pass along to my children as they get older.  I've gotten pretty good at making soups in the past year and decided to go for it.  I debating blogging about it.  Its a little more information than I usually share on here but I like the idea of tracking the experience and I can use it to recall what I liked and didn't like as I perfect the recipe over the next few years. 

I started with the stock.  Many recipes call for chicken thighs but I always prefer chicken breasts and thought I'd try it for my version.  I cut up 2 onions, 4 celery stalks, and a cup of baby carrots and added some asparagus ends and dill and parsley stems that I had in the freezer.  I added 7 boneless chicken breasts (with the fat still on) and covered with water.  I usually use the crockpot for this kind of thing, but put it on the stovetop on medium.  After about an hour, I skimmed the gook off the top, and let it simmer a little longer.  After about 3 hours, I pulled the chicken breasts out of the water and set them aside to cool.  I strained the veggies through a mesh sieve, squeezing the juice out, and discarded the veggies.  Shredded the chicken, and put the broth and the chicken (separately) in the refrigerator overnight.  The next day, I took the lid off the broth to skim the fat.  In the world of Jewish cooking, this is known as the "shmatlz".  Its key in traditional matzoh balls and you use it in place of the vegetable oil. I was very bummed to find that I had accumulated no schmalt overnight.  So much for boneless, chicken breasts... I used the vegetable oil instead and made a mental note to use split chicken breasts with the skin on next time to help get some fat in the broth while keeping the meat white for the end result. 

Now for the matzoh balls... It seems that Northern Delaware has very few Kosher patrons at the local supermarkets.  A few of the local markets have absolutely no kosher section and some only put out a few items for the holidays.  I lucked out a little with it being close to Passover, but had the damndest time finding matzoh meal.  Instead, I grabbed a box of matzoh ball mix and figured I'd customize it myself.  Actually, I added a box of reduced sodium matzoh ball mix because in my searches many people complained about how salty Maneschevitz was and it was all that ShopRite had.  I decided to try only one box of mix, figuring that 9-12 balls would be good to start with.  I separated 2 eggs, whipping the whites a little, and mixed the egg yolks, whites, 2 Tbsps of vegetable oil, a touch of club soda, and a touch of chopped dill.  Mixed it all up and put it in the fridge for setting.  The recipes that I browsed suggested anywhere from 15 minutes until 2 hours.  I figure the longer, the better, and finished this step nice and early.  My next big decision was how to cook the balls.  I have no dishwasher and always err on the side of less pans.  Some people suggest cooking the balls in water, some say broth gives it more flavor, and some cook theirs right in the soup.  The lazy cook in me wanted to cook mine in the soup to give the balls flavor and have one less pan to wash.  After reading some threads on Chowhound.com, I found that both are fine but cooking in the soup gives it a cloudy, murky quality.  I also want John and Shawn to try the soup and figure they'll be more likely to give it a shot if the broth and soup quality look good, so I decided to cook the balls separately in water, cut with chicken broth for flavor.  I also thought this could be a good option because I could freeze some of the actual soup portion without the matzoh balls for future meals.

On to the soup!  I chopped up about a cup each of carrots and celery and sliced up about 4 or 5 cloves of garlic.  I sauteed the vegetables with a touch of butter for about 5 minutes, then added most of the chicken stock.  I saved about a cup or two to boil the matzoh balls in.  Once everything had come to a boil, I turned it down, and simmered for about an hour.  Halfway through, I took out the matzoh ball mix and rolled out 12 small balls, about an inch around.  I mixed the remaining chicken stock with some water, brought it to a boil, and added the balls to the boiling water.  Covered it all with a lid, turned it down to a simmer, and turned the timer to 35 minutes.  Then I walked away.  You can't ever open the lid while making matzoh balls!!  Its like a crockpot- total party foul.  35 minutes later, I took one out to test one.  At first glance, it looked great.  I cut into the ball and my fork sliced through quickly.  Light and fluffy!  I put the balls in the soup, added some shredded cooked chicken, salt, pepper, and chopped fresh dill, and let it all sit for another few minutes.  Then I scooped out a bowl, let it cool, and dove in. 

Mmmmmm...... light and fluffy matzoh balls.  Exactly like my moms.  The flavor was nice, with the chicken stock and dill coming through.  The broth was great and super flavorful.  I needed to add a touch more salt & pepper, which I expected.  I tend to be a little light handed with seasoning.  Overall.... I loved it!  John didn't care for the dill (or grass, as he called it) but he liked the matzoh balls once he tried one out of my bowl.  He said it tasted like chicken.  Good compliment, as far as I'm concerned!  I'm happy to have this in my reperatoire and look forward to making it many times in my life. 

Reggie's Steak with Garlic Chive Butter

One of my responsibility as a hotel salesperson is to walk the lobby one day a week.  We each take turns stand in the lobby between 7 and 8:15am to greet guests and welcome them to the day.  Or to tell them where the restaurant and bathrooms are, which is what I do about 90% of the time.  It gets a bit monotonous.  My day is Fridays which is nice because I may start the day off earlier than normal but I get to leave early every Friday.  This particular Friday I was chatting with a coworker from another department and we got to talking about food, smokers, grilling, etc.  He claimed to be a "beast" on the grill and proceeded to tell me about his steak.  I'll try to be as descriptive as he was:

He starts with a steak thats 3/4 to an inch thick and seasons each side with salt and pepper.  3 times the normal amount, because most of it will roll off with the juices later on.  Turn the grill all the way up, as high as it'll go, get it good and hot, and pop the steaks on.  4 minutes on one side, 4 1/2 minutes on the other and remove.  Top with a small pat of butter, mixed with garlic & chives, and let sit for 2 minutes before serving.  Should be a perfect medium/ medium rare.  He told me it'll be so good Shawn's want to marry me twice.  I don't know about Shawn, but the decription left this lady absolutely salivating for steak.  Maybe its the pregnancy hormones (I'm assuming if you're reading this, you're aware of my current state) but I HAD to have steak and HAD to prepare it exactly as he said. 

So, here goes the crazy lady shopping for steak.  Anyone whos been pregnant, or lived with someone who has been, knows that we're very visual and just a little bit nuts about food.  I had an exact picture of what my steak would look like and went to 2 stores, looking at almost ever steak they had, before I selected 2 perfect steaks for Shawn and I.  They weren't even the same kind!   One was a ribeye, the other a NY strip.  But both met my specifically insane size/ fat/ marbling ratio and they came home with me for grilling.

Dinner itself took little time to put together.  I had taken some butter out earlier in the afternoon to soften and added a minced clove of garlic and some chopped chives.  We took the steaks out of the fridge, added salt and pepper, and let them sit at room temperature while the grill heated up.  Shawn took them outside about 10 minutes after the grill was turned on and followed the timing exactly.  I steamed up some asparagus, heated up some mashed potatoes, and made garlic toast with some of the extra butter.  He was back in the kitchen 8 1/2 minutes later with some gorgeous steaks.  I topped each with a little butter and let it sit while I pulled the rest together. 

Sorry for the lack of photos, but once we got going there was no stopping.  We started by cutting into the steaks to check the doneness and they were absolutely perfect.  Shawn was kind enough to share both steaks so that we (I) could try each type.  They were fantastic and exactly as I had dreamed.  There was no A1 or steak sauce needed for these bad boys!  Crispy edges, perfectly pink in the center, and just the right amount of spices.  Juicy and amazing.  I can't wait to thank Reggie for his recommendation! 

Thrown Together Noodle Soup- Jess's creation

I love vegetables.  I really do; and almost every kind, too.  I could easily be a vegetarian if I didn't like meat so much.  Shawn and John like them, too, but not at the level that I do.  So when I'm on my own for lunch or dinner, I rotate through about 4-5 chock-full-of-veggie dishes.  This is one of my favorites.  Shawn saw me eating some the other night and mentioned that I should put it out for you fine folks to enjoy. 

I start off with some homemade broth or a can of low sodium broth if I don't have any made at the time.  I bring about 2 cups worth to a boil and throw in a few chopped cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of minced ginger (or a few dashs of dried if one or neither are on hand), and the tougher of my chosen veggies.  This time it was sliced celery, chopped carrots, and small florets of broccoli.  I let these boil up for a few minutes, adding in a few dashes of soy sauce and Sriracha hot sauce.  Next I add in the noodles.  Usually I use the noodles from a ramen noodle packet, tossing the flavor packet in the trash where I believe it belongs.  The noodles cook up quickly and are always delicious.  Tastes like college, but better.  I had some leftover whole wheat angel hair that I used instead.  I threw it in with some frozen spinach (baby spinach works here, too) and sliced mushrooms and let it all simmer for a few minutes.  If you want to add some cooked shredded chicken, pork, or tofu, this is the perfect time. 

Once its all ready, I turn off the flame and let the soup sit for a few minutes to cool.  Its HOT- trust me.  I usually taste the broth at this point to see if it needs anything- more salt is sometimes needed.  A touch of curry paste can be nice, too.  I serve it in a huge bowl and eat it with a spoon and a fork.  I like to put my face over it a bit while I eat it to clear my sinuses, too. 

So there you have it.  Jess's homemade noodle soup.  Healthy, delicious, one pot, goodness. 

Noodle Soup
2 cups broth
chopped vegetables (any combination of celery, carrots, broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, cabbage, or whatever you like and/or have available)
garlic (fresh is better, but dried works)
ginger (fresh is better, but dried works)
soy sauce
hot sauce
ramen noodles or leftover spaghetti
Shredded cooked meat or diced tofu (optional)

Love You Pancakes for my boy on his birthday

Today is John's 4th birthday!  The kid loves pancakes and I promised that we'd make a batch to start his day off right.  I had some leftover buttermilk and flipped around my cookbooks quickly to find a good recipe.  The single girl cookbook came to the rescue again.  Its slightly odd that I keep making these potential "morning after" recipes for my kid, but they always sound easy and promising.  I got the dry ingredients together the night before, knowing that John would be up bright and early and ready to great the day with high levels of energy.  I mixed up 2 cups of flour, 1 Tbsp of sugar, 1/4 tsp of salt, and 1 Tbsp of baking soda.  Unfortunately, the recipe first says to use 1 Tbsp of baking powder unless you're using buttermilk- then you use baking soda and only 1/2 tsp.  Of course, I read that part after I added 1 Tbsp of baking soda already.  This is one of my peeves with baking.  If I were cooking I could simply skim out the extra ingredient or add a touch more of everything else to balance it.  But baking is chemistry, not art, and exact measurements are a necessity.  So, I chucked the batch and started again. 

John was up at 7am on the dot and immediately started asking for his pancakes.  We washed our hands, pulled up his step stool, and got started.  I cracked the first egg and John begged to do one.  I tried to help, but it was a bit of a mess.  We were able to salvage it, but had some egg on both of our hands.  Yuck!  As some of you may know, eggs are my least favorite food.  I don't mind it in baked goods, but the raw stuff still skeeves me out a bit.  We added 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk, stirred, and combined it with the flour mixture. It was pretty thick.  The recipe said that you could add a little more milk, but not buttermilk, to thin it out which I did.  Then I let it sit the suggested 10 minutes before cooking. 

The recipe also called for the skillet to be moderately low, which seemed odd to me.  I wouldn't have normally followed this step on my own but in my attempt to follow the recipe for blogging and learning purposes, I went with it.  I kept my double burner skillet (love that thing) over moderate heat for about 3 minutes and then added a few touches of butter in the spots where I would be cooking.  The recipe suggested hockey puck sized pancakes, and they were stille pretty thick when I put them on the stove.  They took way longer than usual to get bubbles on them, and even longer for those bubbles to pop.  For anyone whos never made pancakes- that's usually the key.  Once the bubbles pop you can flip the pancakes and finish up the other side.  These pancakes, when all was said and done, were about an inch thick.  I knew I had cooked them enough, but I was worried.  I was right to be worried.  They were pretty terrible.  The flavor was good, but they were really rubbery and tough.  I ate one, and so did John, and I chucked the rest.  I'll stick to regular pancakes next time and save my buttermilk for biscuits. 

On a positive note, I did change up my method for cooking bacon after a tip was given to me earlier in the week.  I put the raw, thick-cut bacon on a baking sheet (not a cookie sheet for obvious reasons) and placed it in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes.  I'll never make bacon on the stove again!  It cooked it all up at once with little mess.  And the bacon was fantastic!  Crisp and delicious.  Shame on me, too, because I've watched every kitchen that I've ever worked in use this exact method and it never occurred to me to do it at home.  It took longer than normal, but I didn't have to worry about batches and it cooked while I made everything else.  As far as timing goes, it was pretty spot on. 

So there you have it folks.   Not so delicious pancakes but a solid tip for bacon.  I'd leave you with the recipe, but I'd have to type out the whole thing and who would really want a not so good pancake recipe anyway?

Cabbage & Potato Bake- Emeril Lagasse

I have to be honest.... This is the second time that I've made this recipe.  My first try was while I was on hiatus and it was amazing.  So amazing that I planned, and failed, to type it up and post it.  So now that I'm back on the blogging bandwagon and making it a second time (still needing to follow the recipe, though) I decided that it was worthy of your reading.  As much as I love my cookbooks, online recipes truly rock.  They're search friendly, I can check out reviews, and I can also pull them up on my smartphone to review while cooking.  My first time around, I found this when looking for a way to use the huge head of cabbage that I picked up at a farmers market over the summer.  It includes some of the most beautiful ingredients of the world... bacon, onions, cabbage, and potatoes.  Oh, glorious dish!

So here we are just after St Pattys day and guess what I have?  Cabbage, potatoes, onions... and bacon in the fridge.  It was on.  I diced up 5 pieces of thick cut bacon and fried it up for about 5 minutes, and then added 2 sliced onion.  While it softened up, I cut the cabbage into eighths and halved a few red potatoes.  I alternated the pieces in a baking dish, topped it with the bacon and onion mixture, and then poured 2 cups of broth over it all.  I originally used chicken broth, but had some gorgeous broth that I made with a pork bone the night before.  I used that instead- wouldn't you?   Once the dish was wrapped tight with foil, it went in the oven for 1 1/2 hours at 375.  Let it sit for another 15 while I heated up the leftover corned beef and it was ready.

Before:

 After:

Sooooo gooooood..... it could always use more bacon (what dish can't?) but I wanted to keep it a little lighter.  The onions really soften up and mix with the cabbage beautifully when you start slicing it up.  The broth is just amazing.  It gathers the bacon, onion, cabbage flavor and you just want to spoon it up all over everything.  In my onion, the potatoes kind of fade away in this dish.  You don't need them, other than to make it a one pot side dish.  They're good; they just don't shine alongside the rest.  This would be a perfect dish for someone on Atkins or who was trying to cut out carbs.  Its cheap, easy, healthy, and amazing.  Make it.  You'll thank me. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/cabbage-and-potato-bake-recipe/index.html

Corned Beef Sandwices & Potato Salad

March Madness time!!  We have people over every year for March Madness and its always a great time to check out some new recipes.  Once in a while this event coincides with St Pattys Day, which gives fun opportunities to decorate- both for us and for those attending.  This year I decided to go with the Irish theme and make corned beef for sandwiches.  I searched a few recipes and found a version online at AllRecipes.com with 5 stars and over 500 reviews.  With that kind of response you have to imagine it would be tasty, right?  The recipes calls for a stovetop method and many reviewers used the crockpot to great results.  I went back and forth all week about which method I wanted to use.  I finally decided on the stovetop for 2 reasons.  First, those who used the crockpot loved their results but those who used the stovetop method RAVED about their results.  Second, by using the stovetop I could keep the crockpot clean and use it for holding during the party without having to wash in between.  I have a really small kitchen and that really counts for something when you're making a lot of different dishes. 

I used 2 packages of the standard corned beef that you purchase on sale the week of St Pattys Day.  I trimmed the meat and then soaked in water for about 10 minutes to get some of the salty brine out of it.  This wasn't in the recipe, but is something I've heard of before and wanted to add to the mix.  I drained the water and added only one of the included spice packets, a 1/4 cup of whole peppercorns, and a head of peeled garlic cloves.  Topped it with 2 bottles of Yeungling and enough water to cover the meat by about an inch.  I brought the mix to a boil and then simmered it, covered, for around 4 hours; turning the pieces every hour and adding water as needed. 

While this was going on....

I put together some potato salad.  You cannot have an Irish holiday without potatoes.  Can't be done.  I thought potato salad would pair nicely with the sandwiches and also with the smoked pork shoulder that we had coming out later in the evening.  I found another great recipe only, this time on the Food Network's website.  It's Ina Garten's recipe and was well reviewed.  I like that it included dill, mustard, and vegetables.  It also had my main requirement- no eggs.  I hate eggs (despise eggs) and I try to find recipes without it rather than leaving it out.  I feel like when a recipe is created, the whole thing plays together and those featuring eggs will have its measurements and ingredients wrapped around that inclusion.  I want a recipe that suits what I need. 

I cut the potatoes into large chunks and boiled them for about 12 minutes, then drained the potatoes.  I put the colander into the pot and covered it with a cloth for about 15 minutes.  I really like this method- it steams the potatoes to completion so they don't get waterlogged.  The dressing includes mayo, dijon and whole grain mustards, dill, salt & pepper.  I finished cutting the potatoes into smaller pieces, mixed it with the dressing while they were still warm, and finished it off with celery & red onion.  My initial impression was that the salad had too much mustard and I hoped it would be better once it cooled off and the flavors blended. 

Back to the corned beef...

After 4 hours and change on the stove, I pulled the pieces of beef out of the liquid and let sit for about 10 minutes.  Whatever fat was left on the meat skimmed off effortlessly.  I sliced about 2 pieces and was giddy at the texture of the meat.  It held together enough to keep in slices but was so tender that I could pull each slice apart with my fingers.  As you can imagine, I had to take a taste right then and there and was thrilled with the result.  The saltiness had toned down from the pre-soaking and the garlic had such a nice subtle presence in the flavor.  Simply outstanding.  The rest sliced up beautifully and I put it all in the crockpot to keep warm for sandwiches. 

The end result...

It took a while for folks to try the beef.  I wanted to shout from the rooftops- it's delicious!!  Try it, damn it!!  lol.  They finally did and agreed.  I served the beef alongside some sliced turkey, ham and salami so there were sandwich options for everyone.  There was swiss cheese, provolone, dijon & whole grain mustards. and cole slaw with rye and pumpernickel breads.  My favorite combination was definitely the seeded rye with dijon mustard and beef.  Simple and perfect.  I paired it with the potato salad, which had thankfully evened out in flavor and was really tasty. 

Tonight, we'll be dining on leftover corned beef with cabbage and potatoes.  I will keep on trying new potato salad recipes, just because different meats call for different flavors, but my search for corned beef has concluded.  I'll never make it any other way again. 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooked-corned-beef-for-sandwiches/Detail.aspx

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/potato-salad-recipe/index.html

Sidebar- I feel like I have to add a comment about the the pork shoulder, since it was mentioned.  Shawn smoked a nice sized shoulder with his homemade rub and BBQ sauce and also smoked a tray of my mac & cheese.  My man is talented with his smoker and this was no exception.  Fall apart tender and completely amazing.  There were no leftovers and I now have to figure out what to buy this week to use as a catalyst to eat more BBQ sauce.  My mac & cheese was ridiculous and the 2 hours in the smoker gave it so much flavor.  We ate well yesterday, that goes without saying....