Little Ivy Cakes

Kiss me I am Irish(hehe)- Irish Stew

Among having mostly Norwegian blood running through my veins, I also have a little bit of English and a quarter Irish blood. My maiden name is Clendinning which I would say is quite Irish and I guess branched from the Glendinning clan in Ireland (so my father has told me).

For August's Taste & Create, I was paired up with Ruth's Kitchen Experiments from Northern Ireland. WOW! I would love to visit Ireland! Wouldn't that be awesome!
So, I was really excited to be paired with Ruth because I knew her blog before this and enjoyed everything she posted very much. Ruth has so many great recipes to choose from but, as soon as I saw Irish Stew-I heard my ancestors calling me. :) Irish Stew was THE ONE. :)

Ruth's Irish stew was very, very good and hearty. The lamb was really tender and had wonderful flavor. My husband Sean kept talking about how much he liked the stew, "This is so good!" "I really like this!" "Yum!" "when are you going to make this again" "this is really good babe. " with all that talking I don't know how he was able to clean his plate. It must have been the Irish in him. Hahahaha.

The stew didn't come out looking exactly like Ruth's because my veggies didn't seem to get soft enough. I will try to get it right next time.


You can get Ruth's recipe HERE.

And here's the the recipe from my kitchen:

Ingredients:
3 medium potatoes(I used red skinned) cut into big bite-size chunks
4 smallish-to medium(skinny) carrots chopped into chunks
1/2 a walla onion chopped in to chunks
1 spring onion
Approx 1 lb lamb meat cut into large bite-size chunks
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 1/2 tbs butter
1 1/2 tbs flour
1 1/2 tbs olive oil
1 can veggie stalk-I forgot to get beef stalk at the store
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Steps:
-Preheat oven to 375 F
-Saute lamb in olive oil on med-high heat until browned (5 mins), put in casserole dish
-Put potatoes, carrots, and onions in this order into the casserole dish
-Sprinkle salt and pepper and Worcestershire sauce on veggies and meat
-Pour meat or veggie stalk in dish, cover with lid or foil and bake for an hour
-Once dish is done baking....make the roux
-In a large skillet melt butter and whisk in flour along with thyme
-Add all juices from your casserole dish and whisk until mixed completely. Let roux come to a boil.
-Pour roux over meat and veggies in casserole dish mushing potatoes a little.
-Sprinkle spring onions and some fresh Parmesan cheese in casserole dish.

-Cover Bake another 25 minutes
This fed two people with some lunch leftovers. :)

***If you are going to make this, keep in mind that the stew could take about two hours from start to finish. Next time I make this I will speed up the process by
-boiling all the veggies with the broth until almost soft, then make the roux, then add browned meat, veggies, and sauce in a casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes. I think this will be faster because I don't have much time to make dinner after work.
-I also thought that a little red wine in the roux may be a nice touch of flavor and a few more veggies like celery and peas would be good. ???

This recipe has definitely made it's way into this household's heart.

Go raibh maith agat Ruth! (which in Gaelic means "thank you")

I made some Lemon frozen yogurt for you with dark chocolate. :)

THE END!