For our tenth anniversary, we traveled to Ireland and did a CIE tour. As a little girl, I was fascinated with Ireland. I had posters of Ireland scattered across my walls. I am not sure where the fascination came from but my love of green, the accents or the movie Circle of Friends, were the key ingredients. I knew my maternal grandmother was a Dunn and came from Ireland. She died of cancer when my mom was 12. When I turned 9, my mom gave me her class ring. She graduated high school in 1944 and I have worn her ring on my right hand since I was nine.
When Jamie and I started dating, I told him how I saved changed for years to fund my travels. Ireland was the icing on the cake for me, so for our tenth anniversary we booked a southern Ireland tour in November. The 10 day trip was nothing short of amazing and life changing. Have you ever gone to a brand new place and yet it felt familiar as if you had been there before? Well Ireland was like seeing the new and the old, watching pieces of the quilt bind together from childhood dreams to reality. We started in Dublin. We flew in a day early to explore. We soon realized that was a brilliant idea as we watched others came in the day of the trip.
We were just down from Phoenix park, so we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to the park. It was lovely even in November. We explored the park, went to Jameson’s distillery and Jamie volunteered, uhm begged, to be a taste tester. We walked for what seemed like miles trying to find the entrance to the Guinness factory. They have 60 kilometers fenced in the city. It took us a while to find the main tourist entrance. We drank and we ate. The first night we had, leg of lamb with roast potatoes and carrots. We were tired and worn out from touring and walking but the mouthwatering lamb was just what I had envisioned for my first sit down meal in Ireland.
We travel down the coast to Waterford, Cork and onto Kerry. From there we traveled over the river Shannon into County Mayo. We visited the house and town where the movie The Quiet Man, with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. If you haven’t watched this movie, you should. We stayed in Galway and had the best Thai food, crazy right? Then made our way back to yet another distillery, Tullamore Dew before heading back to Dublin. We kissed the Blarney Stone, walked the Cliffs of Moor, saw dolphins in the river Shannon, and touched the Emerald Isle. If you have yet to go, here area few pictures from our trip.
When we have a rare night to ourselves, I like to relive our favorite stops. Ireland is always on our mind so I pop in The Quiet Man dvd, grab the dutch oven, and make leg of lamb with roast carrots and potatoes. With a glass of Jameson, ginger ale, and a twist of lime, we are back to our first night and our first meal in Dublin.
Hope you enjoy!
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 4lb boneless leg of lamb
3-4 medium potatoes – cubed
1 cup of carrots – diced or use the chips and no cutting
1/2 cup of diced celery
1 medium onion diced
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbps of Thyme or 1 fresh spring of Thyme
1 cup of Red Wine/Pinot Noir
1 cup of water or enough to fill the dutch oven half way
Salt and Pepper
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
In your dutch oven, pour the oil in the pot and turn heat on high. Take your boneless leg of lamb (leave the strings on to hold it together) and coat with salt, pepper, one clove of garlic, thyme, and a bit of the rosemary.
When the dutch oven is hot, place the leg of lamb fat side down and cook to sear the meat. Flip the lamb over to sear the other side. Once it has been seared on both sides, add the potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, rosemary and the remaining garlic and thyme. Add the cup of red wine and water to reach half way in the dutch oven.
Now, place your lid on your dutch oven and place in the oven. The rule of thumb is 15 -18 minutes per pound of meat. I cooked this leg of lamb for 1:10 minutes.
Once you check the temperature of 130 degrees, allow the leg to rest for a least five minutes prior to slicing. I roasted some asparagus as well to accompany our meal.
Hope you enjoy a little taste of Ireland.
More Than Green Eggs & Ham 