Saturday, March 21, 2009

Irish Stew & George Clooney

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Yea, I'm a little late with this post, but what else is new. I had a completely insane work week, but still managed to squeeze in a little at home St. Patrick's celebration. First off, I bought myself a new Claddagh ring.

My old one snapped right in half about 2 months ago and after looking around, I found this one that I really liked.

St. Patrick's Day calls for some sort of Irish fare. I've been dying for a good pot of stew, so Irish stew it was. I used Robin Robertson's recipe in The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook as a guideline and although very tasty, it just wasn't all it could be.

I had to do something to up the flavour.

How about some Guinness?

In the stew? Hey, why not?

WOW! What a great idea! The broth took on such a rich flavour.

Have a sip? Don't mind if I do thanks. Cooking is mighty thirsty work.

So my recommendation for adding some oomph to your stew - a good ol' Irish stout. It's not a secret ingredient by any means. One of my customers, Brian (not Adams) is and Irishman and he says his mum always put it in her stew. He was making a big mess of colcannon but I skipped that because I had loads of spuds in my stew. Wanna see the finished product?

Voila! Look at the nice dark gravy. It was chock full of carrots, kale, mushrooms (which I picked out and gave to Jim) white beans and I added some veggie burger chunks to give it extra heartiness. I bought some nice potato-scallion bread to sop up the broth and we chowed down in fine style.

Jim had the camera and was taking pictures and this is what I find when I downloaded -

What the...? No matter how old they get, they are still little boys sometimes, aren't they?

I've said before that I have a sort of love-hate thing going on for PETA. Despite all the good they do, sometimes, they're just a little off the deep end. And, they are at it again. Did you hear the latest wacky idea? CloFu - George Clooney tofu.

Now, we'll all agree that he is one fine specimen, but would I want to eat tofu with his sweat taste in it? I'll just stick with my stew for now thank you.
(I can't believe they actually wrote him a letter about this. Cuckoo!!)

7 comments:

Crystal said...

That ring is gorgeous! My best friend would love it.

Anonymous said...

Nice ring! The stew looked good to me but I have tried Guinness and just can't like it...I've tried twice. Everyone else raves...

Of course the pic of Simon's rear made me laugh, boys will be boys!

Hey, I went and saw Elton and Billy Joel. If you haven't seen them then if you like either one at all go and see them...EXCELLENT Show!

urban vegan said...

You look great in green, Carrie! Happy belated.

My middle name is Patricia b/c I was supposed to be born on St Patty's day. And I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me. Go figure.

Tanya Kristine said...

i love your ring. i have a claddagh ring too but not as gorgeous as that one.

youre so funny...we could so hang out...guiness in the stew; guiness in the mouth, guiness in the st...mouth; guiness in the mouth.

done.

Tanya Kristine said...

oh. and my VERY FIRST pix of kody was of his butthole. moms never grow up either...

BuzzleBee said...

Hey there,

The stew looks to die for!

99 said...

I'll have the Guinness, a little stew and Clooney!