Crock Pot Lamb Stew

It has been extremely cold here in Arkansas! It’s as if Mother Nature decided to skip from summer to winter. In the winter, I love cooking plenty of big, hot, filling meals. Anything I can do in a crock pot…even better. I had the idea after doing Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon (Paleofied Recipe to come soon!) to use wine and lamb in the stew. I was sitting down with my grocery list and knew I had some ground lamb in the freezer that needed to be used. I had found a really great clearance deal and stocked up. So…how most of these intro’s end when I make something up…Bing, bang, boom! I made lamb stew!

Here’s what you’ll need for this hearty winter stew:

• 3 pounds of Ground Lamb
• 1 Medium Butternut Squash
• 1 Yellow Onion
• Red Wine (I used two bottles of red cooking wine, but use something you’ll drink if you’re fortunate enough to not live in a dry county!)
• 1 Tablespoon of Crushed Dried Mint
• 1 Bay Leaf
• Fresh Ground Pepper (It seriously doesn’t need salt if you’re using red cooking wine.)

Having most of the ingredients in the house made this extremely easy. I didn’t even bother to defrost the lamb. Add everything but the butternut squash into the crock pot. Check it every once and a while and move the lamb around. This can take four to six hours. I didn’t want the squash to get mushy, so I waited two hours before adding it. But, by all means, if you add it all at first, let me know in the comments if it turned out okay. 🙂

This stew is hearty, but yummy. The mint added a lovely after taste. I was a little proud of myself for throwing this together. I hope you enjoy this crock pot recipe. I think this would be great if you ran home and threw everything together on a lunch break. The leftovers are great. I hope you’ll come back next time to see what this Crock Pot Loving, Common Sense Cook will dream up next. I’m sending you a hot meal for the cold weather, from my kitchen to yours.

-Ami M. Lee, The Common Sense Cook