Comfort Me with Lentils

Both of my homelands are in the news today.....in the east, Massachusetts has elected a Republican (gasp!) to fill the beloved Ted Kennedy's seat in the senate. And in California, we are being deluged with rain, which seems, as I look out the window this very moment, a bit of an understatement if that is possible.

In either case, we are in need for some serious comforting. And this humble lentil stew certainly does the trick, especially when topped with freshly made goat cheese. Lentils are a bit of a workhorse when it comes to legumes. They are small and therefore cook relatively quickly, and they readily assume any herbs and spices with which they are cooked. This stew (or soup depending on how much broth you add), is heady with curry and loaded with chunky carrots and potatoes. It's 100% vegetarian, but if you like sausage, it would be a very good addition, I think.






I made this simple stew for lunch yesterday, and there is so much we could eat it all week if we wanted too. But I froze half to save for another rainy day, should we be so blessed to have one....goodness knows, we need all the rain we can get. Oh, and you might have noticed that I mentioned freshly made goat cheese. I made that today, and with any luck, I'll have time to share the recipe with you tomorrow. It's divine...

Curried Lentil Stew

This hearty stew has stick-to-your-ribs goodness in every bite. Though this version is vegetarian, chunks of cooked, spicy Italian sausage would make a very nice addition if you are so inclined.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Yield: serves 6

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 stalks of celery, sliced
4 medium carrots, halved length-wise and sliced
1 cup of cubed baby potatoes (fingerling or new potatoes)
2 tablespoons of good-quality curry powder
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
1 quart of vegetable stock
2 cups of dried green lentils
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, carrots and potatoes and cook for five minutes or until the vegetables begin to get tender.

2. Add curry powder and cook for two minutes more, or until fragrant. Stir in tomatoes, and stock and bring to a boil.

3. Add lentils, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes or until lentils are tender. Check in periodically and add more stock if necessary.

4. Taste for seasoning, and ladle into a bowl. Top with crumbled goat cheese if desired. It is also great over brown rice or quinoa or you could serve it with a rustic loaf of bread to sop up all the delicious broth.

Sunday Supper on Monday Night

I like to know what I am going to have for dinner early in the day, so I can think about it, look forward to it, and get hungry for it. But the problem with that is that sometimes it doesn't work out the way I'd hoped and then I'm disappointed and unable to get hungry for anything else. This is exactly what happened to me yesterday. After spending the afternoon at the movies and then the park, when we returned home at around 5 p.m. I was planning on whipping up a beef stew. Unfortunately, I had anticipated only 2 hours of cooking time, not the four allotted by the recipe, and so I had to make adjustments in the menu...which was rapidly shaping up to be leftovers (yuck) or takeout. We ended up throwing together a mish-mash of leftovers from the fridge and got some takeout for me, because I was in no mood for leftovers...and we did not quite have the happy Sunday supper that I'd envisioned. Oh well, such is life.

So we will have the stew tonight, another rushed meal due to the soccer season that refuses to die. But the good news is that this stew is really fast to throw together, mostly because the meat does not require browning. Although I am highly suspicious that the stew might suffer in flavor because of that, Jamie Oliver (whose recipe it is) swears that this is not so..he even made it each way to make sure. Another great thing about this meal is that it can sit in a warm oven after it has finished cooking, waiting patiently until we are ready to eat it. Perhaps it's fate that we are having this on a weeknight. After all, it is only midday and I am finished cooking dinner! All I have to do now is heat up some rolls and toss a quick salad.

This delicious looking one-pot meal, contains so many interesting "veg" as the Brits like to call it; butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes, which I have never prepared or eaten as far as I know, but are the roots of a type of sunflower that do indeed taste like artichoke). It also contains a good amount of wine and fresh sage and is topped with a gremolata (freshly chopped garlic, parsley and lemon peel) after it is scooped into the serving bowls. The beauty of stew in general is that it uses what ingredients are at hand, can take a fair amount of fiddling to accommodate tastes, and can be as simple or elaborate as you desire and based on what is available seasonally.

Hearty Beef Stew

serves 4-6

1 onion, chopped

handful fresh sage leaves

olive oil & butter

4 carrots, peeled and halved

2 parsnips, peeled and quartered

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

3 sunchokes, peeled and halved

1 pound Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and quartered

2 pounds beef chuck or other stewing beef, cut into 2 inch chunks

2 handfuls of flour, salt and pepper

2 T tomato puree

1/2 bottle of red wine

1 1/4 C beef or vegetable stock

1 garlic clove

handful parsley

zest of one lemon

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Drizzle olive oil and toss a pat of butter in large Dutch oven and saute onion and sage over medium low heat until soft. Toss beef with seasoned flour in a zip top bag. Add to pot along with the vegetables, tomato puree, wine and stock. Gently stir to combine. Bring to a boil and place into the oven to bake for 3-4 hours. Meat should be soft and falling apart. Stew can be kept warm in a 225 degree oven until ready to eat. Serve with crusty bread and a simple salad. Scoop into bowls and sprinkle on finely minced garlic, parsley and lemon zest and season with salt and pepper.

Comfort Me

I come from a line of good cooks. My mother is an excellent cook, as was her mother. I have so many memories from childhood of hanging out in the kitchen with my mom as she whipped together fantastic meals from scratch. I would brag about her abilities to my friends and everyone loved to come over to our house for dinner. She was and still is known as being a "gourmet" cook in her circle of friends, and is always excited to try new recipes (and we are equally excited to taste them). She was known in our small town as cooking somewhat exotic foods like curry, and stir-fried vegetables (yes, the town was VERY small). I also had the good fortune of living with my mother-in-law to be when my husband and I were engaged. She is a fantastic cook as well, and introduced me to even more favorites from their family traditions.

So between these two women, whom I consider to be very strong influences in both my love for cooking, and the style in which I do cook, I compiled quite a repertoire of recipes that I would now consider comfort foods. Many recipes are not "traditional mac-and-cheesy" kinds of comfort foods, but they remind me of "home" and the mothers that I love and admire very much, and that is comfort enough for me. These take me back to my roots and make me smile at fond memories of dinner banter and good times with family and friends.

The weather has finally turned here, and it feels like autumn, especially since we have turned back the clocks and night comes sooner. It was the perfect day to make stew. It is a rare occasion that we even have beef, as it is very difficult to find grass fed, local meat, and when I can, it is very expensive. But tonight we splurged in celebration of the cooler weather. This recipe is one I grew up with and is made special by the addition of mild curry powder, just a touch, so that even those who say they don't like curry will probably not even notice it is there. But the curry lends a warmth and depth of flavor that is perfect on a cold night. Serve this tender, flavorful stew over rice, or with crusty bread. We also had an arugula salad with red onion slices and cave aged blue cheese.

Beef Stew Oriental

1 flank steak (1 large or 2 small)

1/3 C flour

salt and pepper

4 C beef stock

1 onion sliced into rings

1 t dried thyme leaves

1 t mild curry powder

Preheat oven to 375°.

Slice flank steak thinly across the grain and place in plastic bag with flour, salt and pepper. Shake to coat meat. Warm a couple of tablespoons of oil in large dutch oven and brown meat, in two batches if necessary. Add thyme, curry, onion and stock and bring to a boil. Cover and bake for 1 hour.