I love making soups and stews. It begins with all the chopping and dicing of vegetables. You just can't help but feel like Betty Homemaker with a cutting board filled with pieces of celery, potatoes, carrot, onion and whatever else is in the refrigerator. Later, when the bowl is set in front of me for dining, I find myself looking at all those cooked veggies, ever so neatly cut up and mingling together in the broth, and getting this rather smug, accomplished feeling as I think, "hey, I cut that up! And doesn't it look great amongst all the other food stuffs I also cut up????"
I think I've mentioned before that I'm not always crazy about that generic mush taste of things cooked in a crockpot. Strike that criticism for this stew! Even after cooking all day, what comes out is a just right savory soup.
It's wonderful to put dinner together in the morning and then go through the day KNOWING the evening meal is taken care of. Even better to smell the delicious aromas of what's to come - makes for a rather perfect day in (out?) the kitchen.
I know what you mean about chopped veggies - there's something cathartic about it.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the done-in-the-AM factor, crock pots probably lead to fewer burned fingers too. I'm typing this one-handed as I soak three fingers in ice water after an unfortunate incident with a pie crust.