Mom’s Irish Stew

My Mom was well known for her cooking. It was not the healthiest meals by today’s standards, but they were delicious! She made a vegetable soup that was sweet from the sugar she added and a donut called Kinklings that were cooked in boiling lard.

She also had some odd names for her dishes. She made a breakfast that resembled what the British call an egg in a basket, but I grew up knowing it as ‘a toad in a hole’.

Another dish with an odd name was her Irish Stew. The oddity is because it had no similarity to any Irish Stew that you would search for on the internet.

Traditional Irish Stew looks mostly like a typical beef stew with potatoes, carrots and onions. Mom’s Irish Stew had none of that. Her dish was ground beef, elbow macaroni and tomato sauce.

As I searched the internet for something similar to what my Mom made, I came upon a recipe very similar called American Goulash.

When I started making it for myself I made two slight changes. First, to make it a bit healthier, I use 93 percent lean ground beef. It may be less juicy meat, but once cooked you really do end up with more meat because of the lack of fat.

The other change in the way I prepare my recipe has to do with how I ate this meal when I grew up. The one thing about Mom was when she repeated her meals, she repeated the sides that went with them. If she made round steak, it always had lima beans and mashed potatoes. If she made Irish stew it always came with peas on the side.

Since she made peas every time she had Irish Stew, I got in the habit of mixing the peas in with the stew. I found the combination perfect. So when I started making my version of Irish Stew for myself, of course I started including peas as part of the recipe.  At least it added a little green to the recipe making it a little Irish, right?

Below is the recipe for my Mom’s Irish Stew.

Ingredients

1 pound 93% lean ground beef

24 ounces meat flavored pasta sauce

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 large onion chopped

16 ounce box of elbow macaroni

1 - 15 ounce can of sweet peas

3 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to ones taste

Some alternative ingredients – I have also made this by substituting the ground beef with ground turkey. I have also substituted the elbow macaroni with egg noodles.

Directions

1.   Sautee the onions and garlic in a skillet and then add the ground beef. Cook until brown. Set aside.

2.   Fill a large pot with 4 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, add salt and then add macaroni. Boil macaroni for 8 to 10 minutes.

3.   Drain macaroni and put back into the pot. Add meat, sauce, diced tomatoes, peas, bay leaves, salt and pepper.

4.   Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and serve.

Nutrition

8 servings

431 calories per serving

22.7g protein

57.4g carbs

12.6g fat