Things To Do In The Kitchen Before You Die: A Recipe For Stew

I keep a growing list of kitchen inspirations that have changed my level of interest and intrigue for the better. These are things I pull out when I'm in a cooking rut, or need to be reminded of why I love discovery in the kitchen.  They are all kitchen-technique or ingredient related, although, hey, if you can find ways to use these techniques to spice up other areas of your life, rock on with your bad selves. (Have you seen the Nudie Foodies book that's coming out?)

Things To Do In The Kitchen Before You Die (Five of many)

1. Use pot liquor to cook with. Known as bean water to most of us, pot liquor is the broth that forms from simmering beans.  You are throwing away intense, natural flavor if you dump this water out. I let the sediment from pot liquor settle before giving it back into a dish, keeping the broth clear and cleaner-tasting.

Stew, Reframed.

This is a spectacular week for some of us, kicking it off by sitting at a table where we don't eat for hours and then drink a lot. Somehow, starting off cranky and drunk is a wonderful way to connect with our friends and families, our joys and passions. I think it breaks our thought processes down into simpler bits and allows us to reassess our words and actions. An example:

Yesterday, this stew was a working lunch without a message, poor thing. I threw the entire post out and started over this morning. After the heart-dropping act of deliberately hitting the delete key, the last things I wrote in the notebook were these:

• Beans should be salty, broth should be sweet.
• Give thanks.

There. Simpler. Less cranky. New post. As a friend pointed out, a blog post about stew should, like stew, be better the next day, anyway. Thanks, Robby.

Farmer’s Market Stew

Burwell General Store

Serves: 6 with bread