So naturally, lunch involves corned beef, because I’m just that predictable.   Slow cooked corned beef, sliced and served with a mustard dill cream sauce, caramelized onions and swiss cheese on warm Red Hen pumpernickel onion baguettes.  With lemon-scallion potato salad since the weather is so summery.

I’m guilty of typically cooking corned beef only once a year and had always used the traditional long, slow simmer as my cooking method of choice, but have generally been somewhat dissatisfied with intermittent, unpredictable toughness of the meat.  I’ve been cooking a lot of corned beef over the past few days and have taken this opportunity to simultaneously experiment with other cooking methods, and now can unequivocally say that the simmer is the one method that I would never repeat, having had great -  and near identical – results with both the slow cooker (12 hours on low with about 1/4 inch of water in the crock pot) and the oven (3 1/2 hours at 300 degrees, tightly covered and also with 1/4 inch of water in the pan).  Both methods resulted in tender, juicy meat – not too salty but full-flavored.  In case you were wondering…