Reuben Casserole

I just finished lunch. It was a super tasty Reuben casserole lunch, and I want more. While there is more in the fridge right now, portion control is a girl's best friend. This casserole is easy, satisfying and reheats well. Happy St. Patty's Day to me (again)!

Reuben Casserole

3-4 lb. corned beef brisket
1/2 loaf homemade French bread, cubed
1/2-3/4 c. Thousand Island dressing with bacon (I believe I used Kraft)
1 1/2 c. sauerkraut, well drained
5 oz. Swiss cheese, shredded

Place the brisket in a slow cooker, add the spice packet (if one came with the meat), cover with water and cook on high for 3-4 hours. The general rule for corned beef is 50 minutes per pound. Once tender, remove from the slow cooker and let rest 10 minutes. Cut into 1/2 in. strips across the grain, then cube.

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Place the bread cubes in the bottom of the pan, top with cubed corned beef, then with the sauerkraut. All measurements are approximate, so if you have more or less of something, do what looks right to you. Drizzle the dressing over the pan evenly and top with shredded Swiss. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until the top is lightly golden and eveything is heated through. Broil for 2-3 minutes at the end of the cooking process to really crisp the cheese layer. Remove from the oven, let rest for 5 minutes and serve.

Truth be told, I know you're lookin' at the bread choice and thinking, "Why on Earth......?" Well, it was all I had on hand, it had to be used up, and I wasn't making a special trip to the store (with gas at $3.50/gallon!) for a lousy loaf of bread. If you have rye or pumpernickel on hand, by all means use that!

For some reason, my brisket didn't become as tender as I'd hoped it would, even though I cooked it about an hour longer that I should have had to. I'm thinking it's the cut I used, so next time I might have to go with a step up, which is still reasonably priced this time of year. I didn't think there was any way I'd use the whole 3.75 lb. roast in the casserole, but I did, and it was just the right amount.

Funny story --- the whole reason I went with a casserole instead of traditional Reubens that day was because I had cut the roof of my mouth and eating almost everything was painful. I figured biting into a soft casserole as opposed to a large, toasted sammy was the way to go, and turns out, I was right. Enjoy!

But where did the leftovers come from?

My most recent post, as you may well know, is about that gosh-darn super-tasty reuben pizza I made last week. It was made with leftover corned beef I'd cooked a night or 2 prior, so today we'll talk about that recipe. I was hunting around on allrecipes to see if one could successfully cook a corned beef brisket in the slow cooker. Now that Buppy went to day work, I wanted something I could come home to, not something I'd have to boil for hours after I got home.

What did I find? A highly reviewed and rated recipe for slow cooked corned beef for sandwiches, which sounded easy enough to throw together in the morning. The flavors added to the brisket are all things we like, so I decided to give it a go. Lucky me, I'm the kinda girl who stocks up on corned beef the day after St. Patty's Day, so I got a slammin' deal on them. Yay for cheap [but tasty] meat! I'm pretty sure the briskets I purchased where somewhere between 50%-75% off the original price. Niiiiiice.

The original recipe can be found here, so I won't bore you with the details. Pop on over and take a look if you have some corned beef in your freezer waiting to be made. I halved the recipe because I only wanted to cook one brisket, although by the time it was cooked and the fat trimmed off, I almost wished I'd have cooked 2. The cooking and fat removal seemed to steal half my brisket away! Boo. Oh well, we got one meal out of it the first night and the pizza out of the leftovers.

Speaking of the first night's meal, we pulled the roast out of the slow cooker and poured the liquid it had cooked in into a pot. We brought that to a boil and added cubed potatoes first, then cabbage after the potatoes had cooked for approximately 10 minutes. Buppy did all this work. Whatever. I put the brisket in the slow cooker, I did my part! All in all, this turned out to be a nice dinner, although next time we'll have to strain out the peppercorns before we add the potatoes and cabbage; they were a little overwhelming.

The recipe here basically adds some beer, bay leaves, the normal spice packet that comes with the brisket, peppercorns and garlic. All things that sound like they'd only enhance corned beef, right?

The verdict? It was good, and cooking it in the slow cooker was a fantastically easy way to make it in the morning and forget about it. Buppy and I both felt that the addition of beer was unnecessary as we couldn't really taste it all that much. Maybe we should chalk that up to using Michelob Ultra Amber [instead of Guinness or something darker], but I think next time I'll keep the spices the same but cook in water [and maybe add a little beef broth]. Very tender, and great for leftover sammys or pizza! Enjoy!