What the Hell Stew

[pegkerr]

In a spirit of perversity, I decided to make a dinner that I would like instead of worrying whether or not the other members of my family would eat it. Once I started, I just kept throwing other things in. I have mentally dubbed it "What the Hell Stew," and I am very sure it is extremely healthy and delicious.

I am 85% that no one in my family will eat more than a bite or two of it. I have given them a cop out by making corn bread for the side.

What the Hell Stew

[amounts are uncertain; I just threw stuff in without measuring]

Turkey kielbasa (Fiona no, Rob yes, Delia maybe)
onions (all three no)
chopped green peppers (girls no, Rob yes)

Browned that and then threw in:

canned tomatoes, chopped (Rob yes, girls no)
tomato paste (no strong opinions)
black beans (all three no)
butternut squash (all three no)
barley (Rob yes, girls maybe)
kale (all three no)
balsalmic vinegar (uncertain. Maybe they won't notice in the general revulsion)



I will report back later. Bwahahaha.

I am sure it will freeze well and I will be taking it for lunches.

Edited to add: The report:

Delia retired to her room in tears at the sight of the horror that filled her soup bowl. She eventually came back and ate some corn bread.

Rob, to my utter astonishment, ate a whole bowlful and went back for seconds. What was up with that? He must have been starving and desperate. He graded it only 4 out of 10, though. He, too, had extra corn bread.

Fiona carefully picked out one piece of kielbasa and ate that, along with her cornbread. The rest of the stew was left untouched.

I rated it 10 out of 10. But then, I would. I will be perfectly happy to eat the leftovers.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Your family is definitely fussier than mine; there's no one here who would reject a dish for containing green peppers or chopped tomatoes.

That said, not one of the other ingredients would be acceptable to my whole family, so the bottom line is pretty much the same.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I am sorry I am not there to have a taste.

It sounds like the kind of thing that will probably improve on reheating.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm an infamous non-fan of bell peppers, but the rest sounds so lovely that I think I'd have dived in happily.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

Good for you! You're making dinner, you get to choose what to make. If they don't like it, they can make their own dinner. That's I do for Princess. She generally finally eats what I made and realizes she likes it, or makes her own pb&j.

LOVE the Name of it AND the attitude to go with!

[nickel234.livejournal.com]

Bravo!!!

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely - and exactly what my mum would do. Tired of all our individual complaints, she started leaning towards assemble-your-own meals (wraps etc), or just put in what she wanted, and cut it up big enough for us to pick out.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I applaud you for catering to yourself now and then. Enjoy the leftovers - more for you! :)

(And, goodness, they won't eat chopped onion? That goes into everything!)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

My brothers didn't. My mother resorted to onion salt and dried onion flakes.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yah, if I had any kids, they'd never have tasted a meal without onions in it.

Dice one medium onion, and fry in butter. While it's frying, check the rest of the recipe. If it turns out it doesn't call for an onion...it'd better be dessert. If that's the case, eat the onion while preparing the dessert.

(Many recipes then continue "dice 5 more medium onions" around me :-)).

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

And to think you and J were roommates...couldn't you have converted him for me? ;-)

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Ohhh wow, sounds _delicious_ to me. I was a terribly picky eater as a child, and only realized how annoying that was to my parents later on (as George Carlin says, "Fussy eater means, _big pain in the ass!"_).

[msavi.livejournal.com]

You're such a considerate mom, one who gives a crap what the other members of your family like and don't like. Every night is What The Hell Night in my house, heh. Fortunately, they both like most of the things I like. And if not, they both know where the cereal and milk are. ;D

[aerden.livejournal.com]

*blink* Dang, Peg, what DO they like? That sounds like a perfectly delicious meal, to me--except for the bell peppers. Bleah. Bell peppers are evil.

Chantal

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Dang, Peg, what DO they like?

Plain, white flour pasta. With nothing on it.

[qwyneth.livejournal.com]

My now-fiance loves that, except with a little parmesan cheese. The very first time I made him dinner, when we were dating, I made a thick, delicious tomato sauce with homemade meatballs. I even split the sauce into two batches--one with meat and one without, since he loves meat and I'm a vegetarian. He served himself, and when he got to the table I realized his plate was filled with plain white pasta, with just a little sauce covering some meatballs on the side. I nearly cried.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

One of my comfort foods (though I never had it as a child) is plain pasta with butter and parmesan and black pepper. If I'm feeling energetic I might mince a few cloves of garlic and fry them crisp in olive oil along with some pepper flakes. No butter in that case, but still plenty of parmesan.

But I sympathize very much with your experience on that first dinner you cooked your now-fiance. All that work! And (um, maybe you should ignore this sentence, since you're engaged to him) you gotta wonder about a long-term relationship with somebody with such limited food tastes.

[qwyneth.livejournal.com]

Hey now, we're just talking about food here. My fiancé's food tastes may frustrate me at times, as I'm sure mine do his, but we do pretty well. I was merely trying to show solidarity with Peg by telling her this story, which now amuses me. :)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Well, that's not hard to make, or even that expensive. In that exact form, not so good nutritionally, though.

[aerden.livejournal.com]

I have to admire palates with such subtle sensitivity that they can get full enjoyment out of plain pasta without needing meat sauce, pesto, or Alfredo sauce to liven it up! (g)

Chantal

Hi, I'm new s:)

[phoenixsong]

Sounds pretty good to me s:) Tomatoes, it would depend on how much they cooked down, and some beans just aren't my thing, but the rest all sounds agreeable. This is also about the only thing that has reconciled me to onions in food -- it nearly liquifies the things. The pieces are fine enough that I don't notice them in most recipes.

I call myself a recovering picky eater -- learning to cook for myself, where I can try new things when I'm ready, has definitely helped. So has learning that "spices" don't always mean "spicy," some of them just mean "not bland flavoring." I've also noticed mood is a big factor; if I'm not happy, I tend to be less willing to try new stuff than if I'm in a good mood.

Re: Hi, I'm new s:)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hi back atcha, and welcome to my journal!

I have had a number of people remark that they were picky as kids but have gotten more adventuresome as they've gotten older (and started cooking for themselves).

Re: Hi, I'm new s:)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Son B was very picky as a kid--he ate basically meat and starch, preferably potatoes. And the meat couldn't be pork, unless it was bacon or ham. No fish or seafood. No spicy food. Corn was his only vegetable.

Now, at 23, in his travels, he eats almost everything he encounters, including duck's blood soup, eel (which I won't), and unidentifiable stuff sold by Vietnamese street vendors.

It can happen.

I'm sure some kids learn to eat a wider variety by being forced to try everything, but we learned early on with him that "forcing" anything didn't work (we'd have had to escalate into illegal territory!). He had to develop at his own pace, in everything. And so he did.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Sounds entirely edible to me. I'm skeptical of combining butternut squash with those flavors, but I'd have to taste it to really have an opinion; you haven't said a thing about seasoning, and I may be imagining a very different dish than you cooked. And I'm pretty much not a vinegar guy in cooking.

The grading system is interesting and no doubt useful, but of course doesn't cover all issues; possibly Rob found it "not that good" (for 4 out of 10) *but* nothing about it really bothered him. And he was hungry :-).

I don't always rate *my* experiments 10 out of 10, so I wouldn't consider it a foregone conclusion that you would; though perhaps you're *that much* better a cook than I am, you certainly do it more. Heck, sometimes what I'm *aiming* for isn't a 10 out of 10.

[jcberk.livejournal.com]

Sounds delicious, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd be jealous, except today I got to use up random things before travelling Friday: a diced onion, a bunch of chopped green beans, a diced red pepper, a small can diced tomatoes, saute until mostly cooked, take out half for tomorrow, add 4 egg whites/1.5 yolks/salt/pepper and scramble around. Turned out better than I was expecting, really yummy.

[leiabelle.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, that sounds lovely. Also, your tone made me giggle all the way through the post. :D

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

love it! not so sure about kale (I've never been brave enough to try it), but mixed with all those other yummy things, I'm sure it's great. I'll have to try it some time.

[janetwain.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely.

But then, my mother made me eat liver once a week.
Couldn't just pick at it... had to eat it. We had brussel sprouts and lima beans showing up on a regular basis, as well. We were also fed a spoonful of codliver oil before bed.

I thought childhood was all about having to do things you didn't like to do, and that's what made growing up so sweet.

Of course, now I'll eat just about anything, but not liver.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

*snort* When I was a kid, my dogs were always extremely well-fed -- Mom and Dad often ate their dinners in the living room in front of the TV, so whenever we had something I didn't like, the dogs got it. That didn't happen very often, though, just with stuff containing mushrooms, squash and fish.