St. Patty's Day!

Around Christmas, I saw my grandparents and they mentioned that they wanted to come up and see the house - since they haven't been over since our housewarming party. I thought it was a great idea and decided to invite them up for St. Patty's Day so I could make my reuben recipe (it's been about just as long since I've made that). 

Reubens
Severing for 6

2 1/2-3 lbs corned beef roast - pre seasoned
12-16 oz beer (Sprecher's Irish Stout recommended)
1 can sauerkraut, warmed
6-12 slices of swiss cheese
12 slices of marble rye bread
Butter - for frying
Russian dressing (if you want to make it use the ingredients below)
3/4 cups mayo
1/4 cup chili sauce
2 Tbs sour cream
2 tsp curly parsley, chopped
1 Tbs spanish/sweet onion, minced
1 Tbs dill pickle, minced
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp grated horseradish
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Russian Dressing

Tastes best if you make it the day before you serve. Also, it will be pretty spicy if you taste it alone, but the heat goes away when you eat it on the sandwich.

• Combine all of these ingredients in a bowl: mayo, chili sauce, sour cream, parsley, onion, pickle, lemon juice, horseradish, Worcestershire

If you don't want to use Russian dressing you can use Thousand Island dressing.

Corned Beef

• Basically follow the directions on the package, but here is what I did.
• Put the entire roast in a large pot (I used a dutch oven).
• Toss in 2 bay leaves.
• Pour in 12-16 oz beer.
• Pour in enough water to cover the roast (I ended up using maybe about 12 cups).
• Cover pot, bring the liquid to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer (you might need to tip or remove the lid to keep the liquid from boiling again).
• Simmer for about 3-4 hours or until the meat is fork tender.
• When the meat is done, pull from the pot and place on a cutting board and let rest before slicing. If you are not ready to assemble the sandwiches, tent the meat with foil to keep it warm.

Assemble the sandwich

• Place a full layer of beef on the bottom of the sandwich.
• Lay down a layer for the kraut on top of the beef.
• Place a slice or two of cheese on top.
• Top with the second slice of bread
• On a frying pan or flat griddle, grill the sandwich like you would a grilled cheese. Be careful when you flip the sandwich; it's easy to send beef and kraut flying out the sides!

Since the bread is dark, it can be a little hard to decide when the bread is ready to flip, so instead of looking for the golden color, you can just use the flipper to tap the bread and see if it feels kinda crusty. If you can't find marble rye you can use a pumpernickel or light rye bread 

Once again, I know this looks like a lot of steps, but it's really pretty easy! If you make the dressing the day before (which is best anyways), on the day you want to make the sandwiches you just put the corned beef on the stove and it does all the work! The only "hard" part was assembling the sandwiches and frying them efficiently enough so everyone ate around the same time. But it's sooo worth it!