Holy cow, we’ve got our Lambs and Lettuces Festival today and it’s done nothing but rain since last night, when we had a tornado warning. Thank goodness the predicted hail never showed up. That would be pretty tough on the lettuces! Of course, the rain and lightning have combined to give all the plants that special green that happens after a storm, and the farm could not be more gorgeous. But, it looks like we’ll be moving most of the scheduled activities inside, and food might be more of a focal point than I expected. So I’m doing some quick improvising here in the kitchen while surfing the web. I wanted to use a lamb shoulder and some turnips from the garden, and voila, I hit upon an Irish Stew from a 1963 House and Garden. Author was Betty Wason and I’ve adapted it to what I’ve got on hand.
Crazy Farmgirl’s Irish Stew

1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 pounds lamb shoulder roast, cut in serving pieces (or stew meat)
3 tablespoons lard
1/2 cup sliced onions
Boiling water to cover, about 2 1/2 cups, or better yet, homemade beef stock!
6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
Bunch carrots, scraped and diced
Bunch white turnips, quartered

Blend the flour, salt and pepper and dredge the meet in the flour mixture. Brown in melted lard in a skillet. Transfer to a heavy pot. Cook onion in fat until lightly colored, then add to the meat. Add boiling water/stock to cover meat, cover pot tightly, simmer at low heat 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Add potatoes, carrots and turnips to stew during the last 20 minutes. Cook until vegetables are tender. To thicken sauce, blend part of the flour mixture used for dredging the meat with sauce from the pot to make a thin paste, add this to the sauce in the pot, simmer until thickened.

You could serve this with Parsley Biscuits, but I won’t today.