Irish Lamb Stew

With a little one now, Kevin and I aren't able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day the way we usually do - by going out and drinking green beer. In college, we used to start at the crack of dawn (literally at 6am) by eating green eggs and ham and drinking green beer at one of the East Lansing bars. Now that doesn't even sound appetizing. So this year, I decided to make an irish-themed dinner to celebrate the day. Kevin has absolutely no irish heritage (he's pretty much 100% dutch), but Carson and I have some irish in us, albeit just a smidgen. I found some recipes on AllRecipes that sounded pretty good. Since I don't like corned beef, I was limited in my choices, so I decided to try out an irish lamb stew. It was sooooo good! I only made a portion of the recipe, but now wish I'd have made more. All three of us loved it! I modified it a lot because I wanted to make it in the crockpot so it would be ready when we got home from work. I'll post the original recipe and then my changes.

Irish Lamb Stew

1 1/2 pounds thickly sliced bacon, diced (I left this out since I can't eat bacon)
6 pounds boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I didn't use this since I just threw the lamb in raw)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cup water (left this out)
4 cups beef stock
2 teaspoons white sugar (left this out)
4 cups diced carrots
2 large onions, cut into bite-size pieces
3 potatoes
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1 cup white wine (left this out)

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble, and set aside. (I skipped this step since I can't eat bacon)

Put lamb, salt, pepper, and flour in large mixing bowl. Toss to coat meat evenly. Brown meat in frying pan with bacon fat. (I skipped this step and just threw the lamb into the crockpot raw)

Place meat into stock pot (leave 1/4 cup of fat in frying pan). Add the garlic and yellow onion and saute till onion begins to become golden. Deglaze frying pan with 1/2 cup water and add the garlic-onion mixture to the stock pot with bacon pieces, beef stock, and sugar. Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Add carrots, onions, potatoes, thyme, bay leaves, and wine to pot. Reduce heat, and simmer covered for 20 minutes until vegetables are tender.

(I just threw everything into the crockpot raw and cooked on low for 10 hours, when it was programmed to switch to keep warm. It was on this setting for about an hour.)