Pickling Spices

I said it before, and I'll say it again. One can never have too much corned beef — especially if that corned beef is almost laughably easy to make in the slow cooker, and you can use the leftovers for craveworthy corned beef and fontina grilled cheeses. Yet as good as the corned beef is alone and in a toasted sandwich, I think I've found its best application yet: as the costar of corned-beef-and-cabbage pizza.

I began by making a basic pizza dough from scratch, then I loaded it with crisp slivers of potato, savory corned beef, sweet cabbage, and three types of cheese, for a sensory trip that was exotic, yet familiar at the same time. Trust me, this pizza wound up being my bona fide pot o' gold at the end of the corned beef rainbow! For the easy recipe, read more.

Party and I have been really obsessed with crockpots lately. I thought we'd prepared just about every kind of meat dish there is (beef chili, Cuban chicken, short ribs, you name it) — until I came across a corned beef and cabbage recipe. It was so hands-off, I was convinced it would be too good to be true.

The result wasn't too good to be true, but it was admittedly way too easy. If you can chop vegetables and place them with meat in a bowl, then you can make a St. Patrick's Day spread of meltingly tender corned beef, braised cabbage, and root vegetables. Consider it your veritable pot o' gold — just remember not to peek! For the recipe, read more.