"I need a hobby!" exclaimed Angela whilst preparing for yet another Sunday night TV marathon. "Something worthwhile! Something fun! Something I can do by myself! Something that might be good for...man trappin'!" With that, I dragged my not so weary legs 20 feet into the kitchen and pulled out one of my over 40 cookbooks and/or cooking magazines. I decided to start with this delightful selection since another pastime of mine is relating anything and everything I can to something literary--hello Emerson.
What I like about this cook book, aside from the fact that it's smartly written by Roald Dahl's granddaughter, is that it's broken up by seasons. As I lazily flipped through the pages, I began my usual habit of looking for the recipes containing ingredients I currently have in my fridge or pantry. If you know anything about my fridge or pantry, this can be quite the challenge. Memories of living off tuna and Cheerios in college just came flooding back. Side note: Tuna, straight from the can mixed with a little black pepper and doused in Frank's Hot Sauce makes for some surprisingly good eatin'--but then again, that might just be the 20 year old in me talking.
Anyway, back to the task at hand. After reconciling with myself that I'd have to make a trip to the store after work and checking Weather.com (have I mentioned I love adverse weather?) only to discover that the following day was to be a gloomy, rainy day, I decided to go with a stew. Yes, a stew. To be specific the "Chicken Stew with Green Olives" on page 188.
I'm normally not a soup type person (I'm sure there's a difference between soup and stew) but I thought the weather called for it and I'm up for trying anything once. Alright, I was also swayed by the scrumptious picture they had attached to the subsequent page. Additionally, I was drawn to the main ingredient, "1 chicken, cut up by your butcher" partly because it made me laugh that she assumed I have a butcher, but also because it would force me to talk to the butcher. I have this irrational fear of looking stupid to the grocery store butcher by asking such asinine questions like, "What is THAT?" or "All I'm familiar with is turkey and chicken...what else is good?" or "What does a pound of thinly sliced turkey really equate to?" I also have a fear of looking stupid in the grocery store in general, which is why I'll spend a vast amount of time going up and down every single aisle before I would EVER ask someone where something was.
I also thought stew sounded like a good pairing for what started this whole meal plan, which was Irish soda bread. Stew and Soda. Sounds like a match made in heaven. One of my other kitchen goals along with learning what crazy kinds of meats are out there in the vast world of "foreign food", is to bake a "national bread" from every country I can think of. Thankfully, this gem takes a lot of the potential guess work out of it. Yes, I own "The Bread and Bread Machine Bible" too. Come on, who doesn't love bread?!
So, after finalizing my dinner for the next night and dutifully writing down what I needed to get at the store the next day, I went onto the computer to look up what was and/or where to find "fennel" (in the produce aisle and it's a bulb--who knew? well, probably lots of people), "cream of tartar" (in the spice aisle and it's white), and what "sweat the garlic" meant. I'll now try and work that into every sentence possible since the connotations I dream up are quite amusing.
Flash forward to the next evening and behold my prepping station! See, I wasn't joking about the cook books!
"Alright," I thought, "Let's get this started!" Step 1: In a large pan, add 3 tablespoons of oil and sweat the garlic and fennel for a few minutes. Damn! Forgot the garlic. At this point, there's no way I'm going back to the store; it was already 7 p.m.!
All in all, excluding that small hiccup, the recipe was really easy to follow and I was only slightly leery of the "whole chicken cut up by the butcher" that I purchased. Although I did a slight cop out on that because I found a prepackaged (by the butcher though!!) cut up chicken so my phobia lives another day.
Here's the end result, which I must say while lacking garlic, was delicious! I added some white wine (okay, the recipe called for it--I'm not that creative, fly by the seat of my pants type of cook....yet) and I think that gave it a unique slightly, SLIGHTLY tart taste.
And there you have it, folks! One tasty, perfect-for-a-spring-rainy-day stew. Light yet substantial and now I have some great leftovers for lunch tomorrow...and maybe dinner some other night (the only bad thing with cooking for one person but hey! I've got a cook book for that too!).
The soda bread, which I wasn't too worried about, turned out warm and yummy. Paired with some English breakfast tea (I know, I'm a little off on the time frame) with some honey, it was the perfect ending to the day (and I'm sure tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...again with the portions!)
I love it! I can't wait to read more. I also hate to ask for help to find something at the store. And I have a phobia of the butcher--I usually try to call my mom and have her talk me through!! Miss you and very excited about the blog!!
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