The cold season has descended upon us once again, and the season of the stew has begun.
I got a chili going that smells so good, the Vestal Virgins would be dropping their Underpantus. How many other folks have been looking at the freezer and thinking " yeah that would be good tonight, but man that will make an epic stew" for the last couple weeks?
Well tonight for me the stew week was here.
Yum.
ETA.* dedux?* son of a , I wish the title were editable, Redux was the obvious intent. I don’t want an invasion of zombie beacounters.
We’ve already had the first batch of the Fall: a very nice beef stew with potatoes, turnips, parsnips, carrots, red wine and mushrooms. Once as a meal unto itself, and once over rice. There is still a container of it in the freezer for some night we don’t feel like cooking. My next project is likely a pot of chili verde to use up the last of the garden-fresh peppers.
Stew are great. One pot (maybe two, if you serve it over rice or noodles), and you get as many meals as you feel comfortable making. Even the noodles and rice can be reheated. Any meat + broth + spices + wine + onions + mushrooms + … Can’t go wrong.
My go-to stews during the fall/winter are Hungarian goulash (pörkölt, with homemade galuska (spaetzle/egg noodles) and a Swedish beef stew called kalops.
I stumbled onto a recipe for Argentinian beef stewwith tamarinds back when I was looking for instructions on dealing with fresh in-shell tamarinds, and we’ve been eyeballing the packet of tamarinds in our pantry now that the weather is slowly starting to cool off. Cilantro haters should back slowly away from this post. Everyone else needs to grab a couple of bunches, a bottle of beer, some hunks of tough, cheap beef, and fire 'em up with tamarinds. Deliciousness awaits.
Yeah, unfortunately. I don’t mind eating it for days, as a quick nukeable when I get home and don’t feel like making anything, but my sweetie doesn’t care for soup much at all, my family lives too far away, and anyone close by can’t comprehend soup that isn’t posole or menudo.
The problem may or may not stem from a year’s worth of making 15-20 gallons of soup every night for a restaurant that then send it out in batches to satellite restaurants. Hrm, I wonder…
I’ve now got pork green chili, tortilla soup, and an awesome chili con carne socked away in the stand-up freezer. For Christmas last year, I received the ultimate inspiration for stews: Big Red (15.5 qt dutch oven).
Mr. Alpine is off to stalk the mighty Rocky Mountain Elk tomorrow, so I’ve got to skip a couple of stew-making Sundays and make some room in the freezer. I think the new con carne recipe will by dynamite with elk.
I don’t mind eating it for days, as a quick nukeable when I get home and don’t feel like making anything, but my sweetie doesn’t care for soup much at all, my family lives too far away, and anyone close by can’t comprehend soup that isn’t posole or menudo.