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…to buy a new pot, that is. (Two posts back…that was Friday.) Saturday I started a soup/stew/concoction sort of thing, realized I needed some things that neither R- not I had picked up at the store Friday, and that meant I needed to get to a big supermarket, not the little town grocery. And if I was going to do that, then…why not go deeper into the city and buy a new pot?I had in mind the pot I wanted, having scouted the limited space in which to store it…an oval Le Creuset pot larger than my 5.5 quart round one, possibly in the warm golden yellow in the catalog…or maybe red like the ones I already have…or maybe blue. Once I was at the store, the golden yellow just didn’t look good when I imagined it in my kitchen… I already have two red round pots (both smaller) and the blue is really a good blue (i.e., I like it a lot.) Of the sizes of oval cookers, the 6.75 quart fit nicely with the other pots I have–and I could lift it fairly easily and knew I could lift it when it had food in it.
And having bought the new pot (and the additional groceries), today it was impossible not to use the new pot. I cleaned out yesterday’s pot, packaged its concoction for the freezer, and started on the new concoction. And this is how it turned out:
I’m very happy with the new pot. I started on top of the stove, sauteeing two finely sliced onions, some garlic, and something over a half pound of (sliced) button mushrooms, in a little olive oil and with a little finely diced bacon. Pulled that out, put in another tablespoon of olive oil, browned the meat (which I’d had in a mesquite-lime marmalade for about 15 minutes), added a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, some Moroccan Tan Tan spice mix (was a birthday present) and some smoked paprika, then a quart of homemade beef stock. and scraped up the fond. Put the onions and mushrooms back in with the meat, got it all simmering, added the last of the bottle of merlot (maybe a cup and a half), added sliced sweet peppers in three colors, cut up a carrot, some celery, then put in a couple of bay leaves and some red pepper flakes and some herbs.
Moved it to the oven and let it alone a couple of hours. Added two cans of black beans (drained and washed–I hate “can flavor”) , fiddled with the spices a bit, and worked in some yellow mustard and the juice of a lime, fresh-squeezed. Back in the oven another hour and a bit. Now the meat was coming apart. Added a cup of pearl barley and added a cup and a half of water (was a lot of gravy already) and put it back in the oven for another hour.
We ate it for supper, of course, with a multi-grain dark bread for sopping. Then I packaged a quart of it for tomorrow night’s supper, and the rest went into a bigger tub for winter use–too hot for the freezer now, but will cool in the fridge overnight. The new pot’s clean and in its new home. All that dark stuff above the food line comes off without scrubbing as soon as it’s in hot water.
Yesterday’s concoction had carrots, potatoes (diced red potatoes), diced tomatoes & green chilis, sliced sweet peppers in three colors, less than a half pound of the button mushrooms, sliced, the same celery/onion/garlic, but completely different spice mix.
I think Paks would like both of these, but probably want that plate of fried mushrooms and bacon, too. And a whole loaf of the bread, and maybe a pot of honey.
Comment by GinnyW — October 13, 2013 @ 7:40 pm
If I was closer I would be begging for a taste.
You earned the new pot.
Comment by iphinome — October 13, 2013 @ 7:55 pm
OOOO enameled cast iron? Lovely. My own humble cooking pales in comparison.
Comment by LarryP — October 13, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
question, does Paxs burn a lot of calories as a paladin, how about King of Lyiona and the queen, they eat a lot and train in there salles, but they must burn up what they eat pretty fast even if most of what thery eat is rich in calories. I wonder if slowing down will affect the Dukes any.
Sorry but food does show up a lot in the books, just woundered that is all.
Comment by elizabeth — October 13, 2013 @ 10:48 pm
GinnyW: Thanks…I shall hope to keep earning it.
iphinome: Enameled cast iron is a wonder and delight. My cooking has improved a lot since I got better pots. More than I thought it would. America’s Test Kitchen (one of the cooking shows I sometimes watch) says that less expensive enameled cast iron is often just as good as the top-line stuff: check that pot lids fit snugly and that handles are big enough for your hands and not wiggly.
For anyone interested, here are the “cookware” posts I made on LJ back when I was planning to get, and getting, the new pots the year I hit 65.
LarryP: Paks is a young, very fit, very active person who spends hours a day (usually) in hard exercise. She burns calories the way I used to, which was…impressive. Also keep in mind that all characters live in a world very different from ours: no motorized transportation, no central heat and air, and most (mages excepted) do what they do by muscle-power. Food shows up a lot in the books because a) people eat, b) eating is often a social activity and an excellent way to reveal culture, c) how people eat, with whom, and what, is an excellent opportunity to enrich characterization. And since readers also eat, this grounds readers in the book-world.
Comment by Dawn Roseberry — October 13, 2013 @ 11:31 pm
mmm…mushrooms.
Comment by ellen — October 13, 2013 @ 11:42 pm
your “concoctions” sound absolutely yummy. I’m really hungry all of a sudden…but I’m having my personal favorite; nasi goreng, which I also make in slightly more modest quantities and freeze in individual portions.
Comment by Jean C — October 14, 2013 @ 7:14 am
Love the new pots — and FYI, since le creuset lasts forever, it sells second-hand on places like Ebay. (I’ve added to my collection by buying used, and since my first LC are decades old, I really can’t tell the difference.)
Plus I bet Paks and co used cast iron and probably clay baking pots (which make wonderful bread!) for cooking.
Comment by Annabel — October 14, 2013 @ 8:10 am
An American quart is about a litre, isn’t it? I don’t really understand American measurements, so I can only imagine a “very large Le Creuset casserole” (which must also be very heavy, no? I have two Le Creuset-alikes and they are wonderful for cooking with, but weigh a tonne each!).
Your stew sounds lovely, although increasingly I prefer to cook beans from scratch rather than use tinned (except baked beans, of course). You can soak for one hour in boiling water if you forgot to put them to soak at the proper time…
Comment by LarryP — October 14, 2013 @ 8:57 am
yes a quart is just a tad short of a liter.
Comment by Rob — October 14, 2013 @ 10:28 am
That looks fantastic! I can’t wait to start making soups and stock with my kids.
One thing I found out watching all the cooking shows, is to use the wine first, let it cook for a good 30 minutes and then put in the spices and vegies. It changes the whole taste of the dish as the wine has tendancy to soak into the spices and overwhelm the taste, especially onion and garlic.
Okay, that’s it! This weekend is soup, stew, and cooking meat in the smoker. Need an all day activity, valling for rain with possiblity of snow.
And now I’m hungry…
Comment by elizabeth — October 14, 2013 @ 10:57 am
We must watch different cooking shows. I never heard that about putting the wine in first. (I’m always sauteing something first, often a series of things and moving stuff in and out of the pot to do so. Concoction #1 had the meat seared first, then the onions sauteed in the fond of that, then the garlic, then the meat added back in. I don’t remember when I added the wine, but it wasn’t until *at least* after the meat went back in with the onions and garlic, and the tomato paste and spices had bloomed on the bare spot in the bottom of the pan, and I’d added in at the beef stock. Concoction #2, I reversed that, sauteing the onions and garlic first, removing them, then browning the meat and so on.
But every cook to his/her own pot, ladle in hand, and techniques as chosen. What matters is that you like what comes out of the pot. (Which, in my case, is never quite the same thing twice.)
Comment by Gareth — October 14, 2013 @ 2:52 pm
Annabel – the key is that the American pint is 16 oz not 20 oz like here in the UK. Everything else drives from that.
Comment by Mary Elmore Kellogg Cowart — October 14, 2013 @ 10:27 pm
Sounds good. You might put out a cookbook for Paksworld readers. The pic looked scrumptious. Not anything fancy. I might buy such a book to drool over, then let my daughter do the cooking (which she loves to do). I enjoy reading about the food in the different areas of Paksworld.
Take care.
Mary
Comment by pjm — October 14, 2013 @ 11:44 pm
Different measurements and systems – oh what a fertile source of confusion! Gareth you are right, but the liquid/fluid ounce is not quite the same size either, although they are “near enough for jazz”.
In Australia a “pot” is a size of beer glass, and it is different from state to state.
What a wonderful thing is the metric system.
Peter
Comment by pjm — October 14, 2013 @ 11:56 pm
Elizabeth, I am glad the pot came clean easily. I think that can also be a difference between a good pot and a cheaper one.
It sounds like you and yours will get a lot of pleasure from the new cookware.
Peter
Comment by GinnyW — October 15, 2013 @ 5:28 am
I visited the cookware post with interest. The silverware drawer in my kitchen cabinet became irreparable this summer. It warped, so it was constantly stuck. It warped years ago, but we adjusted to having to lean hard on the right hand corner to get it open. Then even that didn’t work. So now I am rethinking my cabinets and storage. (It is not a large kitchen – I have enough floor space, but there are four doors opening out of it and two windows.
In the process, I am sorting through the not-really usable, or not versatile enough, to be replaced. My soup/stew pot is very high on the list, since it will not go in the oven. The top has a wooden handle. I love cast iron for the even heat, but my other half claims he doesn’t like the flavor it transfers to the food. Your hints have given me food-for-thought. Thanks!
Comment by ElizabethD Horn — October 15, 2013 @ 10:34 am
My forte is spices and lentils. However, I’m now in a food predicament: my new spouse, Ned Horn, is a very good amateur chef, far better than I am… perfectly done food; beans from scratch to die for. I had almost liked the catastrophic weight loss I had had this year… I think that’s over, but I’m becoming too shy to show my concoctions. Well, I guess it serves me right (or seems to). He thinks that everybody needs a good pan, pot, and knife. He likes to use the pressure cooker too.
Comment by Kerry aka Trouble — October 15, 2013 @ 1:29 pm
Made a concoction in my enameled dutch oven yesterday – started with a couple cans of spiced diced tomatoes and some beef stock. Added a little more water and a cup of barley and let it simmer until the barley was mostly cooked. Added some sliced mushrooms, crinkle-cut carrots and already-cooked ground beef and simmered some more. Divided it into 8 servings and the recipe calculator says they are only 210 calories each – YAY! lunches for the week and then some.
Comment by elizabeth — October 15, 2013 @ 2:03 pm
Kerry: Sounds delicious and then some.
pjm: Definitely these good pots clean better than cheap ones, but my wedding present pots weren’t cheap–they were just not as good as they could have been (enamel on steel, not cast iron.) My other old pots were, some of them, older than I was.
GinnyW: Glad the cookware stuff is being helpful to you. You can sometimes find really good pots in garage sales or on eBay; a friend of mine got an entire set of Calphalon (a good brand) for $50. The heavy enameled cast iron doesn’t put any flavor in the food (I happen to like the plain cast-iron flavor addition, but then I started life in a hardware store, helping arrange stock. I love the smell of good iron.)
ElizabethD Horn: I agree on everyone needing a good pan, good pot, and good knife. I’m personally not into pressure cookers, having witnessed a pressure-cookier blow-off when I was a child, and the mess it made of the kitchen, but to each cook his own favored tools. I do beans (from scratch sometimes, from cans sometimes) but have only done lentils once or twice. Just not our favorite thing. I have a huge old pickle jar of beans, a mix of them. When we used to grow our own beans and dry them, they were then mixed with commercial beans to make up the full jar. Now I buy a pound bag of every kind of bean a store carries, and dump them in. Four cups of dry beans, a ham hock, one or two onions, some garlic, and I’m on the way to beans the way we like them. I do soak the beans overnight in cold water, then transfer to the cooking pot.
Comment by GinnyW — October 16, 2013 @ 6:02 am
I like the flavor from cast iron myself, but since I am not cooking just for myself, I have had to adapt. I have a cast iron square skillet that I inherited from my father, and that I use as a griddle for french toast, pancakes, fried hominy or cornmeal. I refuse to part with it.
I like the Calphalon for frying pans (there was a sale just when I needed it for once). The one thing I am missing is a good stew pot that will stay on the back burner (or in the oven, and preferably both) and that I can use for cooking pasta, and making jam, bean concoctions, and stews as the spirit, season, and availability moves. For space reasons, I need versatility!
Comment by Margaret Poore — October 17, 2013 @ 12:52 am
ooohhh lots of good ideas here for pots of concoctions! I happen to like butter beans but haven’t seen them dried in the stores, only canned.
Comment by Genko — October 18, 2013 @ 3:22 pm
I have Boston Baked Beans cooking in the oven at this moment, in a cast iron dutch oven. I just printed off three recipes from the Internet and then kind of mixed and matched, putting in some of this and some of that. [Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Never tried that, why not?] I had leftover pinto beans in the freezer and we were out of the small white beans the recipes called for, so I used black-eyed peas. Cooked them for an hour and drained them, combining the two beans. Other than that, just added stuff — onions, apples, carrots, celery, molasses, apple cider vinegar, tomato paste, smoked paprika. It tastes pretty good, if I do say so. We’re vegetarian, so no pork rind or whatever else. I think there are nine of us tonight. I’ll make rice and a salad to go with it, and it will be yummy.
I love the Internet!
Comment by elizabeth — October 18, 2013 @ 3:47 pm
The internet is indeed full of good recipes (and some I wouldn’t try, but that’s because they’ve got ingredients that turn me inside out.)
I’m always tinkering with recipes…adding, taking away, more of this, less of that. I’ll bet your beans ARE good.
Comment by GinnyW — October 20, 2013 @ 6:56 pm
The beans do sound good. And I just bought some apples.
Comment by Tracy — October 24, 2013 @ 6:28 pm
There are lots of September birthdays in our family, so some years ago we decided to meld them all together and have a Bilbo’s Birthday Party celebration, complete with hobbit food. I remembered a reference to the hobbits’ meal at Farmer Maggot’s including ‘a mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon’, so I made one up. Dice some bacon (and/or ham or back bacon) and fry it crisp. Scoop out the meat and drain it, then saute lots of sliced mushrooms in the bacon fat. If you like onions (and I do), saute and add those. Dump it all into a casserole dish and add milk or cream to make it soupy. Dissolve some cornstarch in water and add it to the sauce to thicken it. When it’s all bubbling hot, put biscuit dough on top and pop the whole thing into the oven until the biscuits are done. I haven’t made this dish in some time, but this discussion made me remember it. I think Paks would have loved it…