All Child’s Play

Our grandson’s, Colton, birthday gift just arrived yesterday, and I’m so excited.  Wasn’t sure what to expect (since I ordered it from my own toy store online), but we were very pleasantly surprised.

Since his birthday is also Saint Patrick’s Day we kept with the green theme on this kids birthday gift.  I’m sure someday he’ll be telling us to “stop already with the green stuff”, but since he’s only turning 2 we can still get away with it.

I mean c’mon.  Who wouldn’t want to have their birthday on Saint Patrick’s Day.  It’s not like everyone is celebrating Christmas or something and you have to share your day with everyone else.  Saint Patrick’s Day is just one big wild party already, so someday I’m sure he’ll be thankful that all his friends want to go out and celebrate his birthday with him!

Anyway, here’s the gift.  Like I said…I bought it from my own online toy store so there’s a bit of self-promotion here.  But really I just wanted to share it with everyone.  Since Colton’s not old enough to read yet he’ll never know!

THE BIG REVEAL!!!

"Colton's Birthday Present"

Can’t wait until he sees this new little cool ride-on toy.  Maybe now we can get rid of the 26 year old wagon and he can propel himself around in this scoot-a-long toy instead of grandma and grandpa doing all the hard pulling work.

So after much digging and hunting through an extremely disorganized recipe filing system, I think I’ve managed to solve my menu dilemna for Saint Patrick’s Day.

Here’s an old one that I got from my mother-in-law years ago (she’s 100% Irish from New York and at age 80?+ still lives in her kitchen).  I remember having this one a long time ago and liking it, but now I have to figure out where to buy the lamb?

Thought I’d share it here for anyone else that may be trying to figure out what kind of Irish food to cook for Saint Patrick’s Day.

IRISH STEW (The Traditional Way)

3 lbs. boneless lamb shoulder (cut into 1 inch cubes
with most of fat trimmed)
3 lbs. boiling potatoes (such as red potatoes, yukon
gold…peel and cut into quarters)
1 lb. carrots (peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces)
6 stalks celery (cut into 1/2 inch pieces)
1 large onion (diced finely)
1 1/2 TBS. Fresh Parsley (minced)
1 Tsp. dried thyme
6 cups chicken broth (either canned or homemade)
6 TBS. flour (all purpose)
1/4 cup vegetable oil

In a large pot or dutch oven place the lamb, parsley and thyme. Add salt and pepper to taste and cover with 4 cups of the chicken broth. Cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. After 1 1/2 hours add the potatoes, onion, carrots and celerated along with the additional 2 cups of chicken broth. Cover again and simmer for an additional hour.

In a small bowl mix together the oil and the flour until smooth. Stir this into the simmering stew and mix until well incorporated. Simmer uncovered for an additional 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

So..if I can track down some lamb I’m going with this one (without the lamb it seems like it would just be regular old beef stew).

On a LOL side note:  my son happened upon my blog post from the other day about the broken “shoe”.  Called this morning to let me know how sorry he was.  I guess at the time it got broken by my grandson, we were all busy in the kitchen getting ready for dinner, and he said he “meant” to tell me about it later but forgot.  Funny how much these kids can “forget”.

Anyway…if you have anything you want to share with your kids and don’t know how to approach it…just post it on your blog!  Haha.