Putting a Pot On

Putting a Pot On
Cooking up some GGew... flyin' solo fine cookery.

There is very little I like more than to get together with a friend or friends and make a wonderful meal. Either hitting up an old n' favorite recipe or making something up as we go along. I enjoy cooking for my son, I love it when my finer dining and/or cuisenartisan pals invite me over to eat what they just made and heck even going out for a bite, at a grimy diner or one of the town's fine eatin' establishments is always nice... but if I'm makin' food for myself, it's straight up, sandwiches, sausages or GGew.

I've been making GGew in one fashion or another for some 20 years or so... some GGews have been heavily pasta based, others more, whats left in the fridge based. I've fried, sautéd, boiled and simmered (never baked) my GGew any number of ways over the years. These days... I got given a slow cooker from my mom when the parents recently moved. Without a doubt this has had, most likely the greatest impact ever on the nature of and quality of my GGew... So great an impact I thought, this I must share. So... here's GGew, circa fall 2015... (for friends I've known a bit longer, GGew used to be called dog food, I changed this a few years back, you know, for the sake of kids.)

​Step by step... MAKIN' a GGew... Putting a Pot On...

STEP ONE: If you're anything like me (even just a little bit)... they're likely be some basic prep to get to first, most likely cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. ...although being hungry is great motivation to get a pot of GGew on the go... NEVER MAKE GGew on an empty stomach! – Today, I found a burger I'd bought the other night at 5 Guys; a perfect way to get today's GGew going!

WAIT: Oh Right, you will have to go shopping first. Not that big of a deal really. I like to do this first things on my day off. I wander the produce and meat aisles looking for, I don't know, things I've put in my GGew before and things that just catch my eye... Today drove up the Farm Boy, our local grocer with the better than most produce section... a lot caught my eye... AND look... it didn't take more than two minutes to clean up my kitchen!

TODAY's INGREDIENTS: Today was, I guess a kind of special day. I decided I might be driving CAR 29 a bit more than usual so, let's get in the habit of Making GGew on Tuesday, rather than Wednesday, ie the first thing I do on my weekend rather than the last. That I bought today's ingredients at Farm Boy... well I went for a little bit extra... Today's ingredients (from left to right):

• last week's celery
• crazy colored carrots
• green beans
• a sweet red pepper
• old beets
• little white potatoes
• brown mushrooms
• dried beans (soup mix)
• brussel sprouts
• leftover frozen corn

• AND... a red regular red pepper • a pear • chicken broth • a big ol' onion • spinach • fusilli • frozen ground chicken* (with or without feet, beaks, skins and eyeballs)

NOTE: that it's so freakishly expensive these days... I seem to just let meaty part of my GGew go the way the daily discounted meat bin goes, hamburgers on sale? It's a beef GGew... a family pack of pork chops or one of those pork tenderloin thingies is going for seven or eight bucks... I'll take the extra time to chop 'em up... I like meat, it's always in my GGew.

MAKING THE TASTY BASE: Into the bottom of the pot... I like to make a base, a platform of onions and peppers... mixed with whatever spice might catch my fancy and just a touch of olive oil to tie it all together, 'cause you know... you cannot cook something without even just a touch of olive oil (an old n' dear Italian friend told me this. I believe her to this day). Today's spices? A bit of ground black pepper, some paprika and, oh why not a little coriander... 

I really do need to learn a little more about spices. I err to using as little as possible as, many a time in the past I've used way way way too much...

THE ONLY REAL WORK: Really, the most time consuming part in making GGew is chopping all the bits you'd rather not eat off your vegetables... then chopping them into more manageable pieces...
​I like to leave as much hair n' skin on my vegetables, I simply rinse them and chop them coarsely into a size I might like to put in my mouth... INGREDIENTS WILL MELT DOWN when cooking, so even if you don't have a big mouth (like me)... don't chop 'em too small (besides, it's way too much work work to cut things smaller)

PILING IT HIGHER... DEEPER... its ALL IN THE WAY YOU LAY OUT YOUR LAYERS...

1. The onion/pepper n' spicy base
2. Meat (in this case, frozen ground chicken logs)
3. Sprinkle on the hard soup mix beans
4. This is the "hard layer" potatoes, carrots, beets...
5. Softer things as we work our way up the pile, green beans, celery the pear (the pears just going to melt so... don't worry too much)
6. Brussel sprouts... I put the past very near the top as it usually just melts through the mix
7. Frozen thingies (corn)
8. Mushrooms make a lid on the very top

ONE BIG PILE OF GGew

LET GO AND LET...

Set heat to high...
throw out the "I don't want to eat these" bits
wash what little dishes you've dirtied
not the time started
leave it be

COOK FOR... 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 hours depending on how crunchy or uncrunchy you might like things

SERVES... 5 (or less depending on how many days I will eat 2 containers)

I'm a pig when it comes to GGew. Imagine yourself hungry. You've just spent a day driving the pleasantly wonderful folks of Kingston around town. You've had three large coffees, maybe a sandwich and or some Timbits (Taxi Driver Doughnuts)... You're a bit wonky, a little tired out... BUT... rather than having to go home, cut stuff n' cook it... you got GGew... good n' ready GGew! Five minutes in the micro and... mmm... half an hour's nap, a little work on this and/or that, then...​

Then it's time to make dinner!!!
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