Freezer stew

I've been trying to clean out our freezer, and I had about a pound of beef chuck roast and a pound of boneless lamb leg.  Not enough to do anything with on their own, but they made a really good stew together!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb beef chuck roast, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 lb leg of lamb, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 parsnip, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 5-6 large white mushrooms, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• Spices: dried basil, thyme, oregano; black pepper; seasoned salt
• 6 giant cloves of garlic, crushed in my garlic press
• 2-3 cups of chicken broth

I threw all this in the crockpot this morning and let it cook on low for 7 hours.  It came out really flavorful, the meat was perfectly tender and not dry at all!  Usually, I find my miscellaneous stews to be rather bland and uninspired with a taste that doesn't make me want to eat the leftovers, but this one was really good!  I think the secret ingredient was the Borsari seasoned salt.  We picked it up at Whole Foods a few weeks ago and so far it's made everything we've put it on amazing.

Braised lamb shoulder

We got a deboned Icelandic lamb shoulder at Whole Foods, already neatly trussed up.  I decided to braise it with a bunch of vegetables following the instructions in "Art of Simple Food."

1. I took a small glass baking dish and covered the bottom with chunks of onion, celery, sweet potato, and orange and white carrots.
2. I rubbed the lamb shoulder all over with salt, pepper, oregano, and basil.  If I'd thought of it, I would have done this step last night!
3. I put the lamb on top of the vegetables with the fat side up, and added enough chicken broth to come about a third of the way up the lamb.
4. This cooked in a 375 degree oven for an hour, then I flipped the lamb over.  I cooked it another half hour, flipped it again, and cooked it one more half hour.  At this point, the lamb was tender when poked with a fork and the vegetables were mushy and delicious.

This made an awesome lamby vegetable stew that we floated slices of the shoulder on.