After enjoying a high in the 80s on Monday, we had a chilly and windy day on Tuesday. In hopes that spring is on its way, I thought I'd make a stew for (maybe) the last time this season. On hand I already had leeks and parsnips, so I sought out a recipe that would use both.
On the Food Network website (one of my favorite places to search recipes), I found a recipe for Roasted Root Vegetable Irish Lamb Stew. I went to our local Whole Foods to get lamb shoulder, but they did not have any. The next option was a lamb roast that I could cut into stew size chunks, but it was a little pricey. I opted for lean beef stew meat instead.
I love stews and soups that can slow cook, as they get so flavorful. I started this recipe in the early afternoon with the intention of cooking the first step in my slow cooker for four hours on high. Unfortunately, I discovered the hard way that the insert to my slow cooker was not stove top safe. As I was browning my last batch of stew meat, the insert dramatically broke into multiple pieces. Oops.
I quickly adapted, and transferred the cooking to my soup pot, and cooked slowly on simmer instead. As a note to those of you that might make this, I seasoned the stew after the Guinness and stock were added. It seemed strange to me to not salt and pepper while it simmered, so I went for it.
I modified the recipe by not only using beef, but also skipped the vegetable roasting part. I had to leave the house around 5pm and wasn't going to be back until 6:30, so I thought cooking the root vegetables in the stew for a longer period of time would be more efficient. I added the root vegetables about 1.5 hours before I was planning for us to eat. When I got home, the parsnips (especially) took more time to cook than I anticipated. In hindsight, I should have stuck with roasting the veggies. It took another 30 minutes after I was home to get things tender enough to eat.
For those looking to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a little Irish comfort food, I would recommend this recipe. It was pretty easy (minus the cracking of the slow cooker), and was very delicious. For a little extra surprise, I served with biscuits. I had some canned biscuits on hand, as well as some Irish cheddar cheese. I grated the cheese on top of the biscuits before baking. The outcome was awesome. Highly recommend this with a hearty stew like this.
This is great! I am looking for more slow cooker recipes... things that don't have zillions of ingredients but also recipes that aren't based on powdered onion dip mix or a bottle of bbq sauce. It seems like they're either super-complicated (like Williams-Somoma's slow cooker cookbook) or packed with sodium (like the onion dip recipes). Would love a happy medium!
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