My mother once accidentally made a ham for Passover. Yeah, really… it was on sale because Passover and Easter were the same week. I’m making a corned beef today because it’s on sale. In fact the corned beef cost less than half of what the vegetables cost. My housemate picked up the corned beef on sale for $1.27 per pound and I grabbed the vegetables at Whole Foods…

I’ve always used the pretty traditional New England Boiled Dinner method but this year I decided to try baking instead. I put it on a bed of roughly chopped onions and celery, a handful of bay leaves from our tree and just a little water. Closed the pot tightly with foil and put it into a 350° oven. Three hours later I dumped most of the accumulated liquid, put the potatoes under and the carrots around and switched to my stovetop pot roast method (I’ll write more about the magic pot another time…). Another 30 minutes and in go the cabbage and parsnips. I use savoy cabbage; I think it has more flavor. Half an hour more to finish.

Serve with good hot whole grain mustard (homemade of course!) I used Robert’s big old slicer and it worked beautifully. I remembered a stupendous corned beef hash that Robert made for an Easter brunch a few years ago; I’ll bet he bought the corned beef when it was on sale for St. Patrick’s Day…

Today was the only day this week I was going to be home all day to cook and since I have ballet tonight I didn’t want to eat late. I wish I was having it later; a beer would have been yummy to wash it down. Well, there are always leftovers.

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