Irish Stew and Boston Cream Pie

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Being Irish, at least in part, somewhere along the way to get an Irish family name, I like trying to make Irish food for St. Patrick's Day. Honestly, corned beef hash is gross. I just could not eat it last year. So this year I did a little more research and found that Irish stew is basically what I've been making as stew for years. Then I just had to make a dessert, something I like but have never made before Boston Cream Pie.

So for the stew you need beef stew meat (if you're like me and just can't do lamb) potatoes, carrots, onions, parsley and thyme and parsnips.

Those white carrot looking things, those are parsnips and before my research into Irish food I had seriously never thought to try them. But you know what? They are white carrots, look like them and actually taste more carroty. Why has this been such a secret?

So roughly 3 hours later.... we get stew.

Too bad I didn't like it. Heh. I really should have stuck to my normal stew making method and just thrown in some of the parsnips. I followed an online recipe thinking "It's a well respected site, I've made their stuff before and it was good, I'll try it this way."

I should have known one and a half hours was not long enough to soften that stew meat and being in the pot all together the potatoes would be mush and guess what? I was right. Plus I really don't like that much thyme.

On to the Boston Cream Pie....