Tuesday 23 June 2009

Monday May 4 2009: Depression Stew

We just came back from holiday, and as you can see from the date it wasn’t “tomorrow”, like I promised. Anyways – let me get into the Depression Stew. There’s this wonderful food blog called “The Wednesday Chef”, which has become one of Sarah’s favourite online haunts since her discovery of these digital food resources. Anyways, The Wednesday Chef has been kind enough in these troubled and miserable times in which we live to provide us with the Depression Stew.

Here’s the recipe reblogged:

“The base recipe: Saute a chopped onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil until translucent, then add a sliced carrot (amounts are to be changed as needed). When these have cooked together for another minute, add a can of diced tomatoes, and herbs. When the flavours have melded nicely and the stew has reduced a bit, about 15-20 minutes, add a box of frozen baby lima beans. Cook, covered, until heated through, and serve. Vary as you'd like, and enjoy."

Serve with warm, crusty bread to mop up with.

So this is Sarah's version (drrroooool):

2 small onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, sliced
4 tomatoes, chopped roughly
1 ½ medium-sized potatoes, cubed
1 tbsp tomato paste
6 tspn brown onion powder (from Henno’s Ma in SA)
1 tspn dried basil
2 dessert spoons fresh thyme
1 tspn fresh rosemary
1 can red kidney beans
shaved parmesan cheese

As you can see, I’ve started getting all fancy ‘n shite woith posting recipes 'n things. Not bad huh?
See that part about “mop up with crusty bread”? Sarah went one step better. We ate the stew the one night but there was just enough left the next day for one of us, so what did she do? The next night when I got home she had ordered a large Al Fresco’s Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza, warm yummy goodness with all kinds of veggies on it. She heated the chunky, hearty stew, which by now had sucked in all the flavours overnight and dumped it all over the pizza. Now that’s how you make food stretch during a depression. If only those Yanks had her around back in the 1920s and 1930s! Therw would've been none of that jumping from buildings and things, and if their was, they would've landed safely in pools of their own drool!

Oh what wonderful food we ate on holiday! It was a joyous occasion not seen since the likes of the feast of St Someone back in the Holy Days where all those ridiculously dressed geezers ate great hunks of animals with their bare hands and gulped down ale till they all puked and passed out on the feasting tables. We didn’t exactly do that but we did stuff ourselves royally, historically and joyously. We managed to fit in a cooking course in Hoi An as well, I haven’t really managed to put it into words yet. It’s all written down in Sarah “real” cooking diary. I’ll get to that one day. Possibly when she’s back in Australia without me for 5 weeks and I get all nostalgic.

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