Okay, I have to tell you about this photo. It's a bit off center, not because I'm not a brilliant photographress, which in all modesty I'm not. But because I wanted to show off that fabu hand-woven kitchen towel in the upper left corner that my friend Robin of Rurification fame hand dyed and wove with her own little fingers. You should go check her site out, because it's pretty awesome. Her own little fingers do a lot of amazing hand-made type of country-living-things — many of which are showcased on her site.
But, as I was saying about this picture: If you take into account that I have no real camera, I'm pretty dang proud of the full natural light spectrum that I got on this thing. You can see everything in its full glory. Even bits I'm not sure I want you to see, because, well . . .
Can you tell that it's cold instead of hot? I think maybe you can. See, the problem was that when it was hot, we were eating it. And I thought it might be, you know, rude to take a picture of the stew with my mouth full. So I waited until we were done. But by then it had cooled down.
I'm thinking it would have photographed better hot. But what are you going to do? I don't want Miss Manners going postal over a blog post written while my mouth was full of food, so we're just going to have to live with it.
Now I don't know if you have ever tried this dish, but I didn't even know it existed until I made it. Then I tasted it, fainted over how really very layered and lovely the flavors were, and thought, "Hey! This tastes just like Brunswick stew!" And that's how I found out about it. The whole thing happened because one day I had leftover barbecued pork. Plus some other random stuff in the pantry. And everyone was hungry. Whining. Complaining. So I said "ALL RIGHT ALREADY!" and put down my James Cavill fan magazine copy of "How to be a Perfect Parent" and made this stew. And it was very Brunswicky. And very delicious. And now you get to try it! Huzzah!
So shall we move on to the recipe? Let's shall.
Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
Olive oil
1/2 – 1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. garam masala (No, this is a real spice. No, it is. Go check in the spice aisle at your local grocery store. It's there. It's all deliciously Indian and stuff.)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 small tomates, diced
1 small can sliced olives
One can hominy, black beans, garbanzo beans, or kidney beans (This is an equal opportunity blog. Whatever flips your cookies, as long as it's from the legume family.)
1-2 small cans chopped green chilies (I err on the side of 2 cans with green chilies. I love me my green chilies. Can't really go wrong here.)
1 large beef bouillon cube, or two small (When I say large, I'm talking the kind that's so big you have to add 2 cups of water for it to work, instead of just one. I'm talking Knorr. Even though I'm not endorsing them because they didn't send me free bouillon cubes to cook with. But I'm talking Knorr. Okay?)
2 cups water (See?)
About 3 cups leftover barbeque pork, chicken, or beef, cut into small pieces (You can add as much as you want, really. I won't sue.)
Method:
-Sauté onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic in olive oil for 2 minutes.
-Add coriander, cumin, garam masalla, salt, and pepper. Cook 2 more minutes.
-Add tomatoes and stir. Add olives, hominy or whatever you decided on, chilies, bouillon cube, and water. Bring to boil.
-Add cut up barbequed pork and diced baked potato. Warm through and serve.
-Write to me and tell me how Brunswick stew accidentally changed your life.
PS – I don't know if this actually qualifies as Brunswick stew since I didn't look it up in the cooking dictionary. I just know that I went out to eat and ordered some for the heck of it and realized it tasted a lot like mine, and I'd better go post this recipe right now. Enjoy!
