Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I know what I'm having for breakfast. Or for lunch (or both at the same time) depending on when I wake up. And maybe for dinner if it tastes as good as it smells.

Sweetly spicy vegetable stew.

As I mentioned, I finally got around to doing some cooking that I just hadn't had the energy to tackle for a while. I got around to making the vegetable stew I'd been planning. It's sitting in the crock-pot now, mingling its flavours and softening the peas. I just hope I still have enough margarine-tubs to ladle the leftovers into for freezing after I've eaten my fill. (Hey, I did say those come in handy.)

It's heavily carrot and parsnip based, with a whole lot of garlic deliberately cut to a variety of different sizes. I wanted some of the garlic really fine to dissolve in the broth, some kinda small to float around, and some in "this is a vegetable, not a spice, dammit" chunks. I let those ingredients boil (well, simmer -- crock-pot's "high" setting) for a while before adding everything else, and the parsnips really sweetened things up quite a bit. Then I added turnips, potato (fried, so as to have a different texture than just "potato in soup/stew" texture, and to be different from the other veggies), and onion (browned a little, to bring out the sweetness). Since the broth was already getting sweet, I just continued in that direction, adding ...

... oh bother; I really, really must remember the note-taking before I start ...

... adding, uh, fennel, basil, dried parsley, cardamom, and oregano, plus a large, red, mild-hot chili pepper that I don't know the name of. (It was maybe 10-15cm long, purchased at a Asian grocery, and it's extremely sweet for a hot pepper. Milder than a jalapeno but does have a little heat.) I cracked the fennel but didn't grind it. I also added a few drops of vanilla extract and about an ounce of Scotch (Famous Grouse ... yeah, a blended; I'm on a starving-artist budget here). In a slightly different direction, I also added black pepper (coarse), thyme, and a little bit of red pepper flakes. Finally, I tossed in a handful of red lentils (those things are tiny -- I'm half expecting them to completely dissolve) and split green peas. (It definitely wanted something green. If I'd had a serrano pepper, that would've been good too.) If I'd had mushrooms on hand, I'd have wanted to toss those in as well, but hey, this way I can share it with anniemal the next time one of us visits the other.

At that point I had just a little space left over in the crock-pot (this is the small one I borrowed from butterfluff after the lid to my big one broke), and thought the legumes might want a bit more liquid in there if it was going to cook overnight, so I went looking for coconut milk, which would've been perfect with the balance of sweet + hot that was in there. I could've sworn I'd picked up a can of coconut milk recently, but I must have misremembered. There's none in the house. So I just added water.

Right now it's somewhere between a soup that's really heavy on chunky stuff and light on broth, and a stew with a really thin broth. I wanted to leave extra liquid in there as long as it's going to be heated-but-not-stirred. After I wake up but a while before I eat it, I'll check the amount of free fluid and add bulgher wheat, couscous, or more red lentils (I haven't yet decided which) if needed, to turn it into either a thick stew or a really chunky porridge. It'd work pretty well as a soup (much more so if I'd had the coconut milk), but in general I'll take stew over soup, so quite often what I start as a soup turns into a stew by the time I finish. (This one was planned as a stew; only the thought that it would make a good coconut-flavoured soup tempted me to leave it soup-like.)

The interesting thing was that I realized as I was finishing up that it hadn't needed any salt at all. I mean, that makes sense with the sweetness of it, but the original plan had been for the parsnips to make it tangy rather than sweet, so suddenly realizing that I hadn't added any salt was one of those "Well whaddayaknow" moments. (Hey, it was sleepy and I was late.)

Now I just need to find time/energy to get out of here and pick up some groceries. I need toilet paper, milk, CHOCOLATE, bread, sodas, laundry detergent, light bulbs, and a few other things, but this week I've been bouncing between "wehaveadeadlineanditstakinglongerthanwethought" and too tired to think straight or move. Tonight I did come up with the energy to wash dishes and cook (because I was too brain-fried to work on this project but still vertical), but I wasn't up to wrestling my car to the grocery store. That'll be my Saturday project, and if I fail Saturday, then it'll be my half-time plan. (I wanna watch the Ravens. I really want to see the Redskins as well, but I don't think their game is being shown on any of the stations I can tune in.) Sooner or later I'll actually get to the grocery store.