In Which Maggie Loses Her Mojo

I think I've lost my mojo. Unlike Austin Powers, I won't be going back to the Sixties to retrieve it.

My senses of smell and taste have been off lately. All winter, I had the cold that would never end, and since I am a freak who reacts badly to just about every cold medicine out there, I couldn't take anything to help it. Now, it's allergies. Benadryl renders me unconscious. Zyrtec makes me sleepy, and if I take it at night, I wake up hungover. Claritin has no side effects, but didn't work either. I'm trying Allegra now, but it wears off too quickly--I can breathe at night, when I take it, but during the day, I am a drippy-nosed mess.

My cooking is suffering. When working without a recipe, I've been adding too much garlic and spice, because my judgement of what is enough is off.

I'm also not enjoying food as much. I feel bad when I eat out and I can't appreciate the flavors, because my sense of taste is off. I had my favorite TV dinner for lunch today, and it was totally unappealing.

I might need a break from blogging about food if my senses aren't in proper working order.

In the meantime, I highly recommend my friend Jonathan Vaudreuil's blog. He's always been a "big guy", but now he's aiming to reach his ideal BMI, and is tracking his progress with diet and exercise. (He also shares some nice recipes.)
http://jvgetsinshape.wordpress.com

Hopefully, I will get my mojo back soon.

In Which Maggie Makes Corned Beef and Cabbage (but waits until Saint Patrick's Day is over to blog about it when it is less relevant)

Sorry, my bad. I should have posted how to make Corned Beef and Cabbage in time for Saint Patrick's Day, so that it would be out there as a helpful guide. But no, I suck. I made it a week ago, and am only posting today. I've been busy, but not too busy. I apologize.

Unless there are any stragglers left in the bin of corned beef at the grocery store, my timing makes this more a story about how I did it, rather than directions how to do it. (Though, you can check this post again next year, when it's corned beef and cabbage time, I suppose.)

I made my corned beef and cabbage in my 5 quart slow cooker. It took about 5 hours on high. I made enough for me and Chris to have for dinner, have seconds, and then eat it for lunch the next day.

But let's backtrack a little, back to the grocery shopping.

I don't really have any preference flat cut vs. point cut. I bought a flat cut because that was the only cut the low sodium CB (made by Hummel Brothers, in New Haven) came as. A serving of regular CB had 48% of the daily allowance of sodium; the reduced sodium kind was still no angel, with 35%. I bought the smallest CB I saw, which was a little over 2 pounds.

I picked out the smallest head of green cabbage I could find, a little under 2 pounds, and grabbed a bag of yellow onions, because those were on sale too.

I already had baby carrots and small potatoes at home. I only had to halve the little potatoes, but if I'd gotten "baby" potatoes, I wouldn't have had to. I didn't bother peeling the potatoes because they cleaned up well, and their skins weren't too thick. (They were the "white potatoes" that were on sale a while back.)

I cut the cabbage into wedges (eighths), cutting out the hard stem-like part in the middle.
I cut the onion into wedges similarly.

I put the CB on the bottom of the slow cooker, then added the veggies, mostly mixed together, though the carrots closest to the bottom cooked better than the ones toward the top. I poured in about 4 cups of water, and put the lid on it.
I plugged in the slow cooker, turned it to "high", and left. 5 hours later, I came back, and it was all done, and my house didn't reek of cabbage, which can happen when boiling it.

I took out my largest colander and drained the slow-cooker into it. I let the food cool for a couple minutes, and then it was time to eat.