getting all mixed up

my dinners are starting to run together in my head and i'm having a hard time remembering when and what we are eating for dinner. you'd think it would be easy to write it down and keep track, but that would require me to actually remember to write it down. i can tell you that within the last week we had homemade "irish" stew two times, buttercup ravioli and salad twice, and scrambled eggs with homemade bread topped with goat cheese and honey. i just can't remember which night we had which. we also went out for ribs on friday night and had bbq pizza at schlafly's yesterday. anywho, let's back track and talk about the irish stew. i had some local lamb stew meat in the freezer (which is officially the last of the meat in the house, well it was till i went to pick up this week's CSA on friday) and some schlafly's irish stout beer, so deciding to make some stew was kinda a no brainer, especially since the weather has been darn right colder than cold here lately. now a lot of irish stew recipes call for a base of beef broth, which i didn't have any of, so i decided to improvise with the turkey stock from the freezer and the dark beer. and wouldn't you know it, after all was said and done, to me the result was really similar to the taste of beef broth. so next time i decide to make a stroganoff, i'll try the chicken/turkey stock stout beer combo and see how that works there as well.

somewhat irish stew

(here's a rough recipe)

1 lb lamb stew meat

3 carrots

5 small potatoes

1 onion

1 - 1 1/2 cup frozen peas

salt and pepper to taste

bay leaves

10 oz. irish stout beer

1 jar turkey stock 

couple of tablespoons butter and flour

rinse, pat dry, season, and brown stew meat in a dutch oven, remove and set aside. saute onions and carrots till onions are a bit soft. pour in some beer and scrape up all the brown bits in the bottom of pan. add turkey stock, potatoes, stew meat, and a couple of bay leaves and simmer till veggies are soft. toss in some frozen peas and salt and pepper to taste. make a quick roux out of butter and flour and add to stew and simmer till the stew thickens a bit. serve with yummy cheese biscuits.