Reuben Potato Casserole & A St. Pat's Day Book

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I have corned beef on my mind.  I am a huge fan of the classic corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and Irish soda bread meal, and make it every St. Patrick's Day.  I also like to stock up on a few extra corned beef roasts during march as well.

All this corned beef talk got me thinking about one of my all time favorite sandwiches The Reuben, I am also quite fond of a Monte Cristo, but I'll save that for another post.  So I thought I would gather up the necessary ingredients, and make a Reuben sandwich, my plans were halted when I was unable to find rye bread that was not manufactured around tree nuts (blasted tree nut allergy).  We used to have a nice selection of Rye breads at our local store but lately, probably due to economic reasons our store has cut down a lot of its selection, and only had one brand of rye bread.  Being a baker I thought I would just get some rye flour and figure out how to make my own rye bread, our store also does not carry rye flour, so until I can drive into town to find nut free rye bread or the ingredients to make my own rye bread, I will have to put my Reuben sandwich on hold.

Not to be completely stopped, and since I still had all of the other ingredients for a Reuben- Corned Beef, Swiss Cheese, Sauerkraut, and Thousand Island Dressing, I decided to experiment with a Reuben Potato Casserole.

Here is what I came up with-

Reuben Potato Casserole

7 medium large potatoes any variety should do, I used Russet
roughly 2 cups chopped corned beef (I used deli corned beef, but this would be great for left over corned beef roast)
1 cup sauerkraut
1/2 cup thousand island dressing
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
7 oz. chopped Swiss cheese
a couple twists of cracked sea salt and pepper

Wash potatoes well, then peel about 1/3 to 1/2 of the skin off, I like to leave a little skin on the potato, cut into 1/3 inch slices then cube.

Put cubed potatoes in a bowl, add 1 cup sauerkraut, 1 cup thousand Island dressing, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon mustard, all the corned beef, and 2/3 of the cheese, salt & pepper, Stir until combined.  Transfer to a large baking dish that has been coated in cooking spray, top with remaining cheese.  The cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 375 F. for about an hour and fifteen minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through.

Here's how it turned out.  Yummy Potato casserole, the corned beef is delicious and the Thousand Island and Sauerkraut give it a nice twist.  I think this would be best served as a side dish, with a nice sausage and green veggie like broccoli to help balance out the tangy sauerkraut.  It would make a nice hot potato side dish to a BBQ buffet as well.

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I am excited to share a new book I got for the upcoming holiday- This is Ireland. Written by M. Sasek.

M. Sasek wrote a series of children's books touring various locations such as London, Paris, Ireland, Rome, and New York, these books were written in the 50's and 60's.  I have seen these books for quite some time, and have always wanted to add them to my collection.

I really enjoyed This is Ireland, I absolutely love the vintage 50's 60's art work throughout the book, and I think this would be a great way to introduce any child to Ireland, I learned quite a few fun facts about Ireland that I hadn't read before.  The book moves along nicely, and is full of interesting information about Ireland and its history.  I would highly recommend this book, and can't wait to add more of M. Sasek's books to my children's book library.

Here is my Amazon Link for This is Ireland.

Here is a link to a post I did a couple years ago with a nice selection of my favorite children's books for St. Patrick's Day.    I am looking forward to sharing more about our St. Patrick's traditions next week.