Lamb Stew, Lazy Peasant Style

I'm not very good at following recipes, so don't follow mine- because there isn't one. It's a very loose, "add what tastes good" type of stew.

1:

Get some lamb. I bought about a pound of shoulder chops for $3. Dismember the chops, cutting the meat into bite-sized (but NOT tiny) pieces. Try to get as much meat off the bones as you can. Then toss it in a container with an onion (red in this case) and some garlic. Add rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and anything else you fancy. Drown in beer, throw in the fridge.

2:

Take the bones, fat, and anything else that didn't go in the marinade, and toss it in a pot with water. Boil and then simmer for as long as you have time. I also added salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, herbs de provence, majoram, cumin seed, dill seed and lord knows what else. I had some carrot and the stems off my mushrooms in there as well. When you think the stock is sufficiently reduced and tasty, take it off the heat and strain out the solids. Leave the oily film, that's the tasty stuff.

3: (pardon the darkness)

Take that lamb 'n onion out. Pour the beer into the stock. Add a hefty amount of oil (I used butter, actually) to a large stockpot, get it roaringly hot, and toss in the meat. Move it around, the idea is to sear it quickly without drying the meat out.

4:

When the meat is starting to show color, add the stock. Bring it up to a boil and add mushrooms, peas, potatoes and carrots. I already had some potato and carrot mixture pre-cooked from a previous meal. If you want to speed up overall cook time, microwave the potato and carrot a bit before you cut them up.

5:

Eat it or something like that?

At this point I should add that a) this recipe goes much better with goat, if you can buy it, and b) the longer you cook it the better. I like my stews a bit more on the soup-side, so instead of waiting hours for it to reduce, I added some flour and cornstarch (and, after getting bored with pre-mixing them, stupidly starting sprinkling directly over the pot, only to accidentally dump in a large clump that made insta-dumplings all over the pot).