Crock Pot Guinness Beef Stew and Irish Coffee

I am going into Manhattan tomorrow to see a little of the 248th Saint Patrick's Day Parade marching up 5th Avenue in New York City, so I will be making and serving my traditional corned beef and cabbage and Irish Soda bread today, so that my husband and I can re-heat leftovers tomorrow evening for dinner.

Another favorite crock pot recipe that is wonderful to make for Saint Patrick's Day, or any day when you are busy, and don't have time to spend in the kitchen, is Crock Pot Guinness Beef Stew.

Crock Pot Guinness Beef Stew

3 pounds beef chuck roast cut into one inch cubes one cup all purpose flour
oil for skillet
1 large onion sliced into wedges
3 cloves garlic chopped
2 celery stalks chopped
1 pound each carrots, and potatoes, cut into chunks
12 ounces white button mushrooms, sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

2 Tbsp tomato paste
I bottle Guinness stout beer
1 cup beef broth
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh thyme
2 bay leaves

Evenly coat the meat with the flour. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil When a drop of water sizzles once dropped in the skillet, the pan is ready to have the meat added. Brown each side of the meat without allowing it to stick.

Meanwhile add all other dry ingredients, except mushrooms, to the crockpot and turn on low.When meat is browned, place in the crock pot. Pour over the broth, stout and tomato paste

Cook for 4-5 hours on high heat, or 8 hours on low. About 30 minutes before the cooking time will end open the lid and add the sliced mushroom and stir well. Remove bay leaves at this time, return lid and continue cooking until mushrooms are soft

This stew is wonderful served with a side of hot biscuits!

Another variation I enjoy is using egg noodles instead of potatoes. I cook all the same as the recipe above, leaving out the potatoes and adding a pound of cooked egg noodles instead, along with the mushrooms, for the last 30 minutes. I sometimes also added a 10 ounce box of defrosted frozen peas in the last 30 minutes of cooking time.

The Guinness adds a deep richness to the stew broth, and you can add any spice combination you like to suit your own tastes. It is a hearty, versatile stew!


If you are having a party tomorrow you might consider making an Irish coffee for dessert.

This is the famous Irish coffee served at The Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, where America's first Irish coffee was made in 1952.

Here is the story of how it was invented as told by Wikipedia:

"The original Irish coffee was invented by Joseph Sheridan, a head chef at Foynes, County Limerick. Foynes' port was the precursor to Shannon International Airport in the west of Ireland; the coffee was conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked from a Pan Am flying boat on a miserable winter evening in the 1940s. Sheridan added whiskey to the coffee to warm the passengers. After the passengers asked if they were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was Irish coffee

Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, brought Irish coffee to the United States after drinking it at Shannon Airport, when he worked with the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco to start serving it on November 10, 1952, and worked with the bar owners Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg to recreate the Irish method for floating the cream on top of the coffee."

The recipe is on the Buena Vista web site --they serve as many as 2,000 of these famous Irish Coffees each day! They also have other beverage selections and a full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu.

There is a lot of showmanship that goes on at the Buena Vista bar as a multitude of hot sweetened coffees are lined up and the barista pours the whiskey from up high quickly into each glass, and then tops them off with lightly whipped cream. As fast as he can line them up and make them, another round is soon begun.

My husband and I enjoyed visiting San Francisco in 2007, and of course we had to drop by Buena Vista and try an Irish coffee. It is a wonderful way to warm up after a cool day spent sightseeing at Fisherman's Warf.

Tomorrow, I will also be meeting two blogger friends, Diane, of A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words, and Laura, of Shorehouse Chic for lunch. It's going to be an exciting day!

I hope you all will have a wonderful Saint Patrick's Day!

"May you be poor in misfortune,
rich in blessings,
slow to make enemies and quick to make friends.
And may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward."

~ a traditional Irish toast