The Crock Pot Strikes Back: Hearty Vegetable Stew

Hard on the heels of the successful Crock Pot Chickpea Curry, I’ve decided to fire up the crock pot again to make use of a bounty of random vegetables that are building up in the refrigerator. This time it’ll be cooking on low, unattended through the work day (though Pip will be home part of the morning to make sure it doesn’t go all nuclear or anything). This recipe comes courtesy of various internet recipe book versions of vegetable stew, modified by what we had laying around.

Ingredients

• 2 small onions
• 3 celery stalks
• 2 large carrots
• 3 potatoes
• 1/2 cup mushrooms
• 1/4 cup lentils
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cornstarch

Chop the onions, celery, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms and dump them, along with the dry lentils, unceremoniously into the pot. Sure, I suppose you could do so ceremoniously, marching them up the flank of the volcano/crockpot, but Pip think’s I’m weird enough as it is.

Next, grate your ginger, mince garlic and add to the mound of ingredients in the pot. Add all spices.  Pour in liquid components (soy sauce and water) and stir thoroughly.  Depending on your preferences in stew consistency, you can use more water but I like my stew on the substantial side.

This should take about 6 hours on high or 12 hours on low. Ours has been cooking since 6am this morning (I prepared the ingredients last night and put it on when I got up this morning).

Towards the end, salt and pepper to taste. Use small amounts of cornstarch, added while stirring, to thicken if your stew is too watery.

Will let you know how it turns out.

UPDATE 2012-01-11:  Deemed a success. I was particularly surprised how the vegetables did not go mushy but kept their texture nicely. I think I overdid the pepper however, but Pip is either being nice or likes more pepper than me.