For the past several months, I’ve been creating and freezing meals for my son and daughter-in-law and for my daughter and son-n-law, all parents of the 2 most adorable babies born in 2015. I have lost count of how many meals I’ve cooked, frozen, packed in coolers, and hauled to Wisconsin on the weekends we’ve visited.
The freezer meal binge ended well with this recipe for slow cooker corned beef and cabbage. It originally appeared at the Family Fresh Meal site. I made a double batch so we could eat some for supper and have enough left over for a freezer meal for each family. One batch went into the slow cooker (and the batches are big) to cook all day. The other was cooked in my big cast iron dutch oven in a 250 degree oven. It was done about 2 hours sooner than was the slow cooker. The adjusted times for adding vegetables for the oven version are in parentheses.
The meal was delicious and received the coveted Hiram seal of approval. I hope the frozen meals (3 gallon bags full) are just as good.
Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage
5-6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small onion, cut into wedges
3 cups of water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar
8 ounce beer (I split a 12 ounce bottle between the 2 batches and had plenty of broth)
3 pounds corned beef brisket
1 pound carrots (about 4) peeled and cut into strips
1 pound small red potatoes, quartered
1 pound head of green cabbage, cut into wedges
Place onion wedges and garlic at the bottom of slow cooker. These will act as a stand for meat, so it doesn’t touch the bottom and dry out. Place beef on top of onions and garlic.
Next, mix together water, beer, sugar and vinegar. Pour over beef and then sprinkle seasoning packet that came with the corned beef over meat.
Set the slow cooker on low and cook for 8 hours. (For dutch oven method, cook in 250 degree oven for 6 hours.)
After 4 hours of cooking, add in potatoes and carrots. (Add potatoes and carrots after 3 hours for dutch oven method.) Cover and continue cooking.
When 1 hour remains (40 minutes for dutch oven), add quartered cabbage and cook the remainder of the time. Serve hot with broth on the side for dipping and drizzling. Yum!
For freezer meals, allow the meat and vegetables to cool, place in zippered freezer bags and place in freezer, like this:
Cover and continue cooking
