I made Irish Stew!

All of my family and friends know I'm a die hard traveling lover!  I've been a few places in life but not as many as I would like.  Since having my son and being a stay at home Mama doesn't leave me with much room and/or budget to travel anymore I decided that I would bring all the country's and different places of the world I would love to visit to me.  How was I to do this though?  Well, I started thinking about ONE of my favorite things about traveling and that is trying so many different types of new foods and that my Dearest Reader's, led me to this...
I had the fabulous idea to start cooking a traditional meal from another part of the world once a week.
Tonight was the first time I did it and I made Irish Stew!
I have to say this was the best stew I've ever had in my life.  I can't explain how delicious it was.
I guess you'll just have to make it to find out for yourself.

I went off of a recipe that I found but I didn't follow it to a "T".
I really just used it as guild lines to follow.

Ingredients:
Sunflower Seed Oil
2 lbs. of Beef Stew Meat (You're suppose to use Lamb but I couldn't find any today.)
7 Sprigs of Thyme
2 Bay Leaves
6 Carrots (peeled, cut into 2 inch halves)
2 lbs. of Red Potatoes
1 Large Yellow Onion (chopped), (I was to use the white and light green parts of Shallots.)
2 Tbsp. of Worcestershire
Salt and Pepper
Water.

Directions:
Put about 1-2 Tbsp. of sunflower seed oil into a large frying pan,  brown your meat with half of the large yellow onion, thyme, salt and pepper.  When your meat is cooked, pick out the thyme and add about 1 1/2 cups of water and stir up all the juices, I used this as my stock.  Peel and chop your potatoes, carrots and other half of raw onion.  Pour and mix your veggies, meat, stock, worcestershire and bay leaves into a baking dish.  I had to use a 9x13 and it was FULL.  Fill your dish with water until all the ingredients are right at being covered with water.  (I set my dish on top of a cookie sheet just in case it decided to boil over, my baking dish was almost filled to the top.)  Cover with foil.
Put into the oven at 375 degree F.  Bake for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until your potatoes and carrots are tender.

You could also make this in a crock pot, I would estimate the cooking time to be around 4-5 hours on high. 
OR
You could also make this in a pot on top of the stove on medium to medium-high heat and stirring so the veggies don't stick to the bottom.

This was so easy and simple to make.  I know the next time I make this I want to try and find some lamb instead of beef and I think the next time I'm going to add cabbage to it as well.

I hope you and your family enjoy this as much as mine did!
Mm mm yummy!