St. Patrick's Dinner

I'm joining Cuisine Kathleen for her annual St. Patrick's Day Blog Crawl and I've mixed old and new dishes to set a table for some yummy Irish Stew.

 The salad plates, water glasses and dessert dishes are vintage items I've picked up at resale shops.

 The rest are from Home Goods, Old Time Pottery and Dollar Tree.

 These bowls are perfect for a generous portion of Irish Stew.

I am SO ready for Spring!  These tulips make my heart happy each time I walk past them!

Wonderful Hubby said this recipe was an absolute keeper!

I found it at allrecipes.com but I had to tweak it a bit.

DARK ALE IRISH STEW

I used
  2 lbs. of chuck roast, cut into half inch cubes

  2-3 Tablespoons 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

  1 Teaspoon salt and black pepper, or to taste

  2 pinches of cayenne pepper

  1/4 cup olive oil

  1 yellow onions, chopped

  2 cloves garlic, crushed

  2 Tablespoons tomato paste

  Enough water to dilute tomato paste

        1 twelve ounce (12 oz) bottle of dark ale, divided               

  2 sprigs of fresh thyme

  3 medium potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks

  4 carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks

  1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley for garnish

                       

Directions

• Whisk the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper in a bowl and dredge the meat to coat evenly.
• Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat; cook and stir coated beef cubes, working in batches, until beef is browned on all sides, 5 to 10 minutes.  Transfer to a dish and keep warm.
• Cook and stir onions and garlic in the same pot used for browning beef until lightly browned, 5 to 10 minutes
• Stir tomato paste with enough water to partially dilute; pour into onion mixture. Stir to blend. Reduce heat to medium, cover Dutch oven, and simmer for 5 minutes.
• Pour half the dark ale into the onion mixture, and bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the browned beef and any remaining juices. Pour remaining half of ale into beef mixture; add the thyme.  (I tied the thyme sprigs together so they could be easily removed later.)
• Cover Dutch oven, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 1 and 1/2 hours.
• Add potatoes and carrots and simmer.  If the stew looks a bit dry, add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup beef broth so the vegetables are covered. Stir every 20 minutes, until potatoes are soft, about 1 hour. Adjust salt as needed; garnish with parsley.

This recipe serves 2.



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Linking to:

Amaze Me Monday @ Dwellings-The Heart of the Home

Tuesdays at Our Home @ Our Home Away From Home

St. Patrick's Day Blog Crawl @ Cuisine Kathleen

Tablescape Thursday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Foodie Friday @ Rattlebridge Farm