Slow-Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

I planted a fruit tree. Resolution two, fulfilled in February. A Honeycrisp apple tree, semi-dwarf, purchased from a nursery outside Ames. Kevin and I dug the hole in the backyard — the one section not claimed by Jack's garden — in soil that was just thawed enough to work. The tree is bare-root, a stick with roots, unpromising to look at. But it'll bloom in April and fruit in two or three years, and by the time Jack is ten or eleven, there will be apples in the backyard — our apples, from our tree, in our soil.

The permanence of it hit me while we were shoveling dirt around the roots. A fruit tree isn't an annual. It doesn't die in October and get composted. It stays. It grows rings. It builds years into its trunk the way people build years into their bodies. This tree will be here when the kids are grown. It will be here when Kevin and I are old. It will outlast us, maybe. I planted a thing that will outlast me, and the weight of that — the specific gravity of planting something permanent after losing four hundred permanent acres — made me stand still for a moment with the shovel in my hands and the dirt on my boots and the bare tree in the hole and the sky above it all.

Kevin saw my face. He put his hand on my back. He didn't ask what I was thinking. He knew. He always knows. He said, "It's a good tree." I said, "It's a Honeycrisp." He said, "Those are the best ones." He was talking about the apple. He was also talking about me standing in the yard, crying a little, planting something that won't bear fruit for years. Honeycrisps. The best ones. The ones worth waiting for.

I made a pot of beef chili that night, a big one, the cold-weather ending, the last hurrah before spring soups take over. Ground beef, beans, tomatoes, spices, cornbread on the side. The chili of a woman who planted a tree and dug a hole and got dirt on her boots for the first time in three years and remembered what it felt like — not to farm, but to be connected to the ground. To put something in the earth and trust it to grow. The oldest act. The Weber act. The act that continues.

I didn’t have the energy to stand over a stove that night — not after the shoveling, not after the crying, not after the particular kind of full that comes from doing something that mattered. I’d thrown the corned beef brisket in the slow cooker that morning before we went outside, so by the time Kevin and I came in with dirty boots and quiet hearts, the house smelled like something had been taking care of us all day. That’s the gift of a slow-cooker meal on a day like that: you do the hard work outside, and it does the work inside, and somehow everything gets done.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 8 hrs | Total Time: 8 hrs 15 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 to 4 lb flat-cut corned beef brisket (with spice packet)
1 lb baby red potatoes, halved
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 medium yellow onion, cut into wedges
4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups low-sodium beef broth
1 cup water
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 small head green cabbage, cut into 6 wedges
Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

Layer the vegetables. Place the potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker in an even layer.
Prepare the brisket. Rinse the corned beef brisket under cold water and pat dry. Rub the included spice packet evenly over the top of the brisket.
Add liquid. In a small bowl, whisk together the beef broth, water, and whole grain mustard. Pour the mixture over and around the brisket. Sprinkle with black pepper.
Place the brisket. Lay the spiced brisket fat-side up on top of the vegetables. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours, until the meat is fork-tender.
Add the cabbage. In the last 45 minutes to 1 hour of cooking, nestle the cabbage wedges around the brisket. Replace the lid and continue cooking until cabbage is tender but not mushy.
Rest and slice. Transfer the brisket to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes. Slice against the grain into 1/4-inch slices.
Serve. Arrange the sliced corned beef on a platter alongside the vegetables and cabbage. Ladle some of the cooking liquid over the top as a light broth, and garnish with fresh parsley.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow-Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage — The Meal for Days When You Put Something in the Ground