Yummy yummy stew

So I have a lot of bread now. What is bread good for? Why, dipping in stew of course. I only worked in the morning today and so, this afternoon, I found myself wandering around the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. Whole Foods is very pretty. A little bit scary and corporate, but pretty nonetheless. I felt a craving for red meat, but being the lovely health concious person that I am, I decided I needed vegetables too. I bought some lamb stew meat (from New Zealand.....crazy), cipolini onions (because they make me feel like a real foodie), some butternut squash (I'm tired of potatoes) and lemon thyme. I got home, ransacked my fridge, and found some baby carrots, garlic, canned tomatoes and whiskey. This was going to be a great stew.

Lena's Orange Lamb Stew (named for the color and not the citrus)
olive oil
3/4 lb lamb stew meat
handful baby carrots
butternut squash, cut into smallish pieces
three canned tomatoes
1 jigger whiskey
three sprigs lemon thyme
2 cloves garlic
about 12 cipollini onions, peeled and root end trimmed (I parboiled them. I'm so fancy.)
salt and pepper
chicken broth

1. Sprinkle your meat with salt and pepper. I like kosher salt because I like big pieces of salt, but it's up to you.

2. Pour a few Tbs of olive oil into a large pot over medium high heat. When it gets hot, brown your meat. Mario Batali says this is very important, so who am I to say otherwise. It took me about 7 minutes. Remove meat from pan and reserve.

3. Add garlic and whiskey to pot. Reduce whiskey and don't burn the garlic.

4. Add the meat back to the pot, along with some chicken broth or water (I think I added maybe two cups? I don't measure. About half the box, I think). I added the broth first, because I didn't want everything to keep smoking and burn. Burning is bad.

5. Chop the tomatoes, throw them in the pot. Throw in carrots, peeled onions (or a chopped regular onion if the small ones are too fussy for you), and the butternut squash. Pull the leaves off the stalks of lemon thyme and add them too. Add some more pepper if you like pepper. I love it.

6. Simmer over low heat for as long as you can stand it, but at least an hour. I did mine for two hours, then I let it sit while I had a meeting and came back and heated it up. It was good! And I used the bread to sop it all up.

I'll blog more about theatre at some point....I've got to actually see some first. But I have tickets to two shows next week! That should be exciting.