Catch Up Attempt: Irish Stew

I'm now trying to catch up on my posting and am not going to allow myself to get so far behind again! I had a rough month in March, and have just felt overwhelmed so far in April, but I'm trying to get back on track!

I did our St. Patrick's Day celebration the day after St. Patrick's Day since I was sick. I decided to go with a traditional Irish meal, so I bought some soda bread (I didn't feel like making it) and bought some stewing lamb to make a stew. The recipes I was finding all mentioned how simple and rustic traditional Irish meals are because of the history of poverty.

When I went to the store to get the lamb, I was excited to see that soda bread was on sale buy one get one free! That's one good thing to doing St. Patrick's Day late! I got to the meat section and saw that there was a lot of lamb chops, but they were all very expensive, two for about $17. I then saw the stewing lamb and it was only $5, a much better price!

I found several recipes online, but the one thing they all agreed on is that if you add alcohol, it is not Irish stew, if you add too many herbs that they would not have had, it's not traditional. I made it about as simple and rustic as you can get and it tasted fantastic! I was also very pleasantly surprised to find I liked the soda bread. I had tried Irish soda bread in the past that had caraway seed in it, and I didn't like it. This soda bread didn't have any caraway seed at all, so it tasted much better to me.

I would definitely make this meal again!

Irish Stew
knob of butter
1 large white onion, diced
1 package lamb stewing meat (4 bones)
4 yellow potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup peas
2 tablespoons parsley
salt
pepper

1. In a 6 quart dutch oven, place the butter and onion over medium-low heat and cook onions for about 5-10 minutes.
   
2. Place in lamb, potatoes, and carrots.
3. Fill dutch oven with water to about 1 inch from top. Place back on the stove.
4. Allow stew to simmer for 1½-3 hours or until meat is falling off the bone. Add peas, parsley, salt, and pepper about 30 minutes before stew is done.