Angela Stew

Angela is one of my oldest friends from high school. By a unique turn of events, she'll be spending New Year's Eve in Atlanta this year and I decided to honor said occasion with soup, especially since I'm trying to get her to move here and I need to show her that Atlanta is awesome, and not as ghetto as she thought it was the first time she was here when I lived in the Projects.  Slightly complicating my cooking is the fact that Angie is a vegan. I couldn't be further from a vegan, after all, Brian and I have bacon fat in our fridge right now. However, vegan soups are super easy to make. Angie, I hope you like this, there will be some in my freezer for you once you get here.

For this Angela Stew (or mushroom-barley stew if you don't know Angela), you'll need: 3 cloves of garlic, 1 onion, 3 carrots, 4 stalks of celery, 2 parsnips, some veggie broth, a bit of white wine, random fresh herbs if you have them lying around, bay leaves, some spicy seasoning to taste, 2 leeks, cremini mushrooms, kale, barley and canned diced tomatoes.

The first few steps here are optional.  All three of my vegetarian friends always comment that store bought vegetable broth is gross. Since I pretty much only use meat-based broths (which I find tasty), I took their word for it and set out to jazz up the broth a bit. If you like the taste of vegetable broth or are using another broth you like, then skip all this. If not, mince or finely dice the garlic, onion, carrots, celery and parsnips.  I also peeled the parsnips and celery because I didn't want to scrub them.

Next, go foraging for herbs.  I found this frozen rosemary outside. I used a huge sprig since rosemary is hearty and I knew a little ice wasn't going to harm it.

Next, heat a bit of olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat and throw all the veggies in.  Cook these for about 5 minutes.

Then, add the vegetable broth.  I only bought a 32 ounce container, and I knew I would need more broth that that, so I also added about 16 ounces of water.

Now add some white wine.  I really only added this because the bottle had been open in the fridge for a week while I was away on Blivmore Holiday Road Trip 2010 and I truly believe that wine goes bad in 3 days and this would be gross to drink. Gross to drink, but okay for soup, I guess.

Stir all that up and throw in some bay leaves, the rosemary sprig (or whatever else you found), and some salt and pepper.  I also threw in a bit of dried smoking hot peppers to add a little kick. Let this simmer for at least one hour, preferably 2 hours.  The longer it simmers, the better the broth will taste.  Alternatively, throw it all in a pressure cooker and cook for like 20 minutes.

What to do with the free time while this is simmering? Well, maybe you have Christmas presents to put away. Maybe one of those presents is a gel pro mat (aka, the best thing in my kitchen) and you're so excited that you'd rather stand on the mat than sit on the couch. Or maybe that's just me. Go relax, like a normal person.

While the broth is simmering away, prep the rest of the vegetables.  I started with the leeks, slicing them in half then in small pieces.

Next, the mushrooms. I chopped them up a bit even though they were already sliced. I didn't want giant mushroom chunks in my stew.

Lastly, the kale. Angela, like myself, is a wholesome Italian girl so I have no doubt she has a fondness for kale. After all, we all grew up with Italian wedding soup chock full of kale.  The secret to making kale edible is to remove the tough stem and shred the leaves.  Also, once you're done shredding, give this a good wash. Kale can be a bit dirty and dirt is gross to eat.

By now, your broth should be well simmered.  Pour it into a large bowl, remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprig, and blend with a stick blender.  Alternatively, you could just drain all the solids out. But I wanted to keep them for their yumminess and vitamins. Yes, your broth will be a tad bit orange. Get over it, orange is awesome.

Finally, it's stew time. In the same stock pot as before, heat a bit of olive oil over medium heat and add a cup of pearl barley. Toast the barley for about 2 minutes.

Next, add the leeks and cook for 5 minutes, until softened.
Then, add the mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes, until they begin to shrink and brown.

Add the tomatoes with their juice.  Isn't this pretty? This stew could easily be turned into a barley risotto if you'd like.

Lastly, add the broth and kale.  Stir this up, throw in a pinch more of salt, and simmer for another 40-60 minutes until the kale is wilted and barley is cooked.

I ate my stew with a almost heart shaped grilled cheese sandwich, but I suck at making grilled cheese and only some of the cheese was melted. At least the soup was yummy! Enjoy!

Curry Chickpea Stew

Ah December. That magically month of the year when time seems to fly by much too quickly and despite our best laid plans, we all end up rushing around, buying lame gifts, and feeling so guilty and stressed out that the only way to feel better is to eat dozens of chocolate peanut butter balls. Or is that just me? Other people don't feel this way about December? Regardless, when life makes you too busy to even consider cooking, nevermind cooking something healthy, remember your slow cooker and use it and all its magically powers.  Yes, the slow cooker is a lifesaver for tough cuts of meat like brisket or pork shoulder, but it also does a great job on simpler things, like this Curry Chickpea Stew.  In full disclosure, I pulled this recipe off The Kitchn.

For this delight, you'll need: 1 medium onion, potatoes of your choosing, about 2 inches of fresh ginger root, hot peppers of your choosing, 4 cloves of garlic, curry powder, brown sugar, 1 head of cauliflower, 1 green pepper, 2 cans of chick peas, 1 big can of diced tomatoes, 4 cups of broth of your choosing, 1 can of coconut milk and some baby spinach.

Start by dicing the onion. I diced mine quite finely and it completely disintegrated in the stew. If you prefer to taste and see your onion, chop it a little less.

Next, peel and dice the potatoes.  I used three small red potatoes because I had them in the pantry, but should have bought a bigger potato.  Peeling little potatoes is more like a lesson in not peeling your finger tips. I failed.

Next, peel and grate the ginger.  The tiny little ginger nub in the picture is just the tip of the ginger iceberg. I ended up grating about 3 inches of ginger root which made about a tablespoon of grated ginger mush.  I really like ginger, so I wanted a good amount of it. If ginger isn't your thing, feel free to scale back. I do recommend using fresh ginger over powdered. The powdered stuff creeps me out a bit.

 

Into the same bowl as the ginger goes your diced hot peppers.  I picked up two sorry looking serrano peppers because the grocery store didn't have any jalapenos (said store also didn't have cauliflower and I had to go to the snooty store for it and was less than pleased).  I anticipated these serranos would be hot like fire like the ones Brian and I grew and I was sadly mistaken. If like spice, be sure you add more than I did, or are using fresher peppers.

 Also into the ginger-hot pepper bowl goes 4 minced garlic cloves.

Lastly, throw in about a tablespoon of curry powder and 2 teaspoons of brown sugar. I used light because it was all I had, dark would be fine too. Mix this all up with a fork.

Now for the evil snooty-store cauliflower, chop the entire head into florets. Try not to judge the cauliflower for coming from the rich kid grocery store, it's not the vegetable's fault that the people who shop at the discount store don't want to eat it so they don't stock it.

 Then dice the green pepper and add it to the bowl with the cauliflower.

Now for cooking. For starters, I'm going to apologize for these pictures. I couldn't get the camera to take a decent picture of the onions and potatoes and Brian wasn't home to fix it. Yes, I will admit it, our digital camera is smarter than I am and I do not know how to use it. This should come as no surprise to most people. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add a bit of oil then add the onions, cooking for about 5 minutes until they're translucent.

Then add the potatoes, cooking for another 2 minutes or so.  Yay! Skillet full of tasteless white vegetables! Now's a good time to throw in a little bit of salt to give these guys a smidgen of flavor.

Next, add the ginger-hot pepper-curry powder mix and stir, stir, stir until the vegetables are coated and you start to smell the ginger and curry.

Pour in about 1/2 a cup of broth to deglaze the pan and ensure none of the flavor stays stuck in your skillet.  You may elect to do this in two steps, once with the veggies in the skillet and again after you transfer the veggies to the crock pot.

 Transfer the onion-potato mix to your slow cooker. Yum! Looks like Indian food mush!

Dump the cauliflower, green pepper, rinsed and drained chickpeas and diced tomatoes (with juice) into a 6 quart slow cooker. Pour in the rest of your broth.  I used 4 quarts of stock total, but if you want a thicker stew, use a bit less.  Set the cooker on high and let it go for 4 hours.

About 3 1/2 hours into the cook time, take the lid off and give the broth a taste. Mine was quite bland. I blame the dull serranos. I spiced mine up with a bit more curry powder and some garam masala. Put the lid back on and let it cook for another half hour. Once that time is up, add the spinach and can of coconut milk, stir this up, put the lid back on for a few minutes until the spinach is wilted.

I ate mine by itself, but it could easily be served over some cous cous. This recipe made about 10 servings as well, so you best be hungry or have some freezer space for the extras. Enjoy!