Beef Stew

You know when you’re feeling kinda tapped out, and multitasking isn’t doing you any favors, and you just wanna curl up in a bowl and call it a night? Yeah, it’s that time of year, isn’t it. Scott made this stew the other night (he actually cooked!) for when I got home from the field, and after the gym I thought it’d be nice to just reheat a bowl of something instead of cooking. There wasn’t quite enough for two full servings, so we decided to eat it on some nice, buttered egg noodles.

I was totally gonna make some croutons to go on top, but the batard was way too stale even for that, and I had to process them into crumbs and fry them to render them edible. The night Scott made the stew, I made thick croutons broiled with shredded fontina, but it was much soupier then and really needed it. The sad thing about stew is that although it tastes so much better a day or two later, the peas go all peaked and look like really sad shadows of their verdant selves.

Pickle-making isn’t really a one-day feat, is it? I’ve been doing small batches every day, but the eggplant chutney set things off on sort of a bad foot. It’s too thick to really get all of the air out, and so of course one of the jars blew out its bottom in the pressure cooker. I didn’t realize it until I went to vent off some of the pressure when I smelled the chutney that should’ve been sealed up in the jar. Finally, everything cooled down enough to handle, and I was able to see the carnage of oily eggplant shreds floating around inside the pressure cooker. Ick. I had to wash all the remaining jars in soapy water to get the oil off, and scrubbed the pressure cooker before getting the next batch in last night. Tonight will be the red onion pickle.