Gypsy Den Cafe's Adobe Stew

Every once in a while, my man and I crave hippie food. I have days where I wonder how I'm gonna get by without a good hummus and pita snack. Maybe with some cucumber slices and a bit of lemon juice squeezed on? Mmm! When we were living in California, we'd often indulge our hippie cravings at a little place called the Gypsy Den Cafe. They had a great vegetarian soup there called Adobe Stew, and I'd get a cup of that with a half turkey sandwich (on some sort of nutty bread with cucumber and alfalfa sprouts, natch) and be set.

Now that we're in a place that's a little bit more scarce on hippie food (unless you want to drive downtown every time you want some sprouts), we've taken to having a home-cooked vegetarian night every Wednesday to stave off the hippie food desire. While I often go for a stir-fry or a tofu dish, I decided this week that I wanted to try my hand at that delicious stew the Gypsy Den Cafe served me. Thanks to them for the inspiration - I'd still be going to your restaurant if it wasn't however many hundreds of miles away from me now.

Adobe Stew

Serves: A whole mess of people - 8-10 servings, probably.
Active Cook time: ~30 minutes*
Inactive Cook time: ~1 hour +
Difficulty: Super Easy
*This can vary - your active cook time can be as little as 10-15 minutes if you prepare some of the vegetables in advance.

Hardware
-Large Stock Pot (or similarly big pot. Basically the biggest one you have.)
-Large Stirring Spoon
-Chef's Knife and Cutting Board

Foodstuffs
-1 large onion
-4 stalks celery
-4 carrots
-4 oz sliced mushrooms (1/2 of a package of sliced mushrooms)
-1/2 to 3/4lb red potatoes, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
-1 yellow zucchini squash
-1 green zucchini squash
-1/4 lb green beans
-2 (15 oz) cans diced tomatoes
-1 (15 oz) can garbanzo beans (aka chick peas)
-1 (15 oz) can kidney beans
-1 (15 oz) can black beans
-1 (15 oz) can yellow corn
-2 quarts vegetable stock
-1 mini bottle red wine -or- 3/4 cup red wine. (I use a mini bottle of Merlot)
-1 tablespoon minced garlic
-1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
-1/2 teaspoon dried basil
-2 bay leaves
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon pepper
-additional salt/pepper to taste

Ack, I know that's an intimidating list of ingredients. Don't worry, it's really very easy to throw together.

All of the following steps can be done ahead of time: Chop your onion into small pieces. Chop up the celery stalk as well. Slice the carrot into small rounds - if your carrots get wide enough at the top that you think one piece is too big for your mouth, cut the pieces there in half. If your mushrooms are too large, cut those into smaller pieces as well. Dice the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. With the zucchinis, slice them into 1/4 inch slices, then quarter each slice. This ensures no piece is too big for your mouth. Cut off the ends of the green beans and cut into pieces no bigger than 1 inch.

If you decide to chop up your vegetables ahead of time, you can package the onions, celery and carrots together. Make sure to leave the mushrooms by themselves. You can also package the potatoes, zucchinis and green beans together. Refrigerate them in tightly sealed containers until ready to cook. I do not recommend cutting up your vegetables any longer than 24 hours before you're going to make the stew in order to keep your veggies fresh.

Heat up the olive oil in your pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and garlic along with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir occasionally to sweat out the delicious juices stored within these veggies. After about 3 minutes, add the mushrooms. Allow to cook 2-3 minutes, then add the wine. Let the alcohol cook out of the wine, approximately 5 minutes.

Open, drain and rinse the corn and the garbanzo, kidney and black beans. Add the vegetable stock and diced tomatoes (with tomato juice in the can) along with the Italian seasoning, basil, bay leaves and pepper to the pot. Stir. Add the beans, corn, potatoes, zucchinis, and green beans. Stir to combine.

Bring to a low boil, then cover and let simmer, reducing heat to low. Let stew for at least 30 minutes. I recommend at that point that you turn the heat off or super low but leave the pot on the burner in order to keep the stew warm but prevent overcooked icky veggies. You can leave it on the stew for a few hours, allowing the flavors to commingle and become super delicious. The Gypsy Den Cafe served the stew with a healthy helping of cheddar cheese grated into it, but I prefer it without. This stew is great as a meal on its own, or can be a side dish for another meal.
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Mom's Metloaf

I adore meatloaf. I think it's tasty, awesome and has great leftover potential - and leftovers are even easier than cooking! Man, there's nothing like a nice warm meatloaf sandwich when you're too lazy to cook. Mmmm. It's totally not vegetarian friendly, but that's why Astrani has her meatless recipe blog. This recipe comes from my mom's kitchen with some minor modifications by yours truly. Thanks for teaching me to make meatloaf, ma!

Meatloaf is good alongside a nice starchy side, like pasta, rice or potatoes. Hobo Potatoes and Mashed Potatoes go great with them. If you're watching your carb intake, greens are also awesome with meatloaf.

Mom's Meatloaf

Serves: 4-5 people, leftovers highly probable
Active Cook time: ~15-20 minutes
Inactive Cook time: ~1 1/2 hours
Difficulty: Super Easy

Hardware
-Loaf Pan (9"x5"x3" pan - I got mine in the kitchen gadget aisle of the grocery store)
-Large Mixing Bowl
-Knife/Cutting Board
-Powder-free latex gloves, a clean plastic bag, or a long-handled fork
-Oven
-Rubber Spatula
-Meat Thermometer, Instant-Read Thermometer, or Cook'd Right Sensors (see end of recipe)

Foodstuffs
-1 lb lean ground beef
-1/2 lb Italian sausage
-1/2 cup bread crumbs (Italian seasoned bread crumbs are best, but any will do)
-1 slice white, potato, or sourdough bread
-1 egg
-1 can petite diced tomatoes, mostly drained of juices
-1/2 large yellow or brown onion
-2 to 3 garlic cloves
-2 tsp Italian Seasoning
-2 tsp mustard
-salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Dice the onion into small pieces and mince the garlic as fine as possible. Cut open the Italian sausage's casing and empty the meat into mixing bowl with beef, bread crumbs, tomatoes, onions, garlic, egg, seasoning, mustard and salt/pepper. Crumble the piece of bread into the bowl. Mix using a fork, or gloved/covered hand. If you are especially brave, you can use your clean bare hands to mix everything together. Just make sure you don't get any under your nails, ick. Anyways, mix everything together until it's well combined, then use the rubber spatula to move the mix into your loaf pan.

Let cook for about an hour and a half to two hours, checking for done-ness at around an hour and 15 minutes. Use your thermometer to check the internal temperature of your meat in the middle. 160 Farenheit means it's done. Personally, I use Cook'd Right Hamburger Sensors to check if my meatloaf is done. It's a plastic stick you poke in the middle of the meatloaf with a tip that changes to bright red when the correct temperature is reached. I found a place to buy them online, but I just got mine in the grocery store.

The first time you check to see if it's done, you'll probably notice a lot of liquid in the pan. Feel free to drain this off if you don't want your meatloaf's structural integrity compromised. Leaving the liquid in will result in a moister but far less sturdy loaf.

Variations
If you want to cut back on the amount of red meat in your diet, you can use 1/2 lb ground beef and 1/2 lb ground turkey instead of a whole pound of beef. This will result in a drier loaf, so you may not want to drain the fat if you like it nice and moist. You can also substitute the Italian sausage with ground pork if you'd like, but you'll want to add more seasoning, salt and pepper to counter the loss of the sausage.

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Simple Chili

What better way to start off this recipe list than with one of my favorites? My mom's easy chili recipe is one of my top raiding foods, because the longer you just ignore it on the stove and play your game, the better it ends up tasting. It's basically fool-proof, and it's a good start if you're new to the whole cooking for yourself thing. Follow the original recipe for a savory chili that's great over rice, baked potatoes, macaroni noodles or cornbread. Add some of my optional spices for a nice spicy chili that's just as good, but with a bit more kick!

Servings: About 6 bowls of chili, more if you serve it over something.
Prep Time: Start this about 30 minutes before your raid.
Difficulty: Easy

Hardware
-A Large Pot with Lid
-Long-Handled Spoon
-Knife
-Colander (strainer)

Software
Foodstuffs
-One pound of ground beef (the leaner the beef, the better quality chili you'll have.)
-One large yellow or brown onion
-7 to 8 cloves of garlic
-2 cans dark red kidney beans
-1 can corn
-1 can diced tomatoes (If you're like me and don't dig big chunks of tomato, go for the petite diced tomatoes)
-1 standard size jar of salsa (choose your salsa based upon your taste and how hot you want your chili)
-Olive Oil
-delicious cheese of your choice to top your chili with, probably cheddar (optional)
Spices
-Cumin
-Chili Powder
-Salt
-Pepper
-Cayenne Pepper (optional)
-Red Pepper Flakes (optional - yes, the pepper flakes that the pizza guy delivers will work here, too.)

On a stovetop, heat a small amount of oil in the bottom of your pot, you won't need any more than about a tablespoon of oil or so. Dice your onion up - the pieces do not need to be too small, nor is it crucial that they be the same size. To prepare your garlic, lightly crush each clove with the flat of your knife. This'll make them easier to peel! Mince them up as fine as you can. Toss these in the now hot oil, and listen to the happy sizzle.

Get your ground beef out of the fridge, and sprinkle some of your cumin, salt, pepper and chili powder on the top of the little pile of meat you have. Cumin's going to be giving your chili a nice savory, full flavor with little spice, and the chili powder is what makes it taste like chili. Add some cayenne here if you're going down the spicy road. Put the meat in the pot with the side you've seasoned facing down, then season the other side and mix it around with your onions and garlic. Brown the meat, continuing to move it around the pot and spice to taste. You're going for small pieces of meat in your chili.

A word on spices, and why I'm not giving exact measurements: How much spice you put in your chili is a matter of preference, and you'll learn with time the balance you like to have. Personally, I use about 2 teaspoons of cumin, 1.5 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon cayenne per pot of chili, plus 3-4 packets of red pepper flakes. I'm totally estimating that, though, since I never measure.

As your meat is browning, take a moment to open up the cans of beans, corn and tomatoes. In your sink, put the beans and corn in your strainer and rinse well. See all that red grossness coming off the beans? Aren't you glad we're washing them? Yeah, me too.

Add the beans, corn, salsa and tomatoes to your beef once browned. Note that the beef does not need to be perfectly done before you add the rest of the ingredients, just a nice brown color on the outside instead of red all the way around. Stir to combine the ingredients, and if you're doing a spicier chili, add your red pepper flakes now. Bring this to a simmer (nice little bubbles coming out the top of the liquid), then reduce the heat to low, cover and let simmer.

Now go raid! Let your chili simmer for at least 30 minutes before serving, and stir it occasionally if your raid wipes, or you get a break. The longer you let it simmer, the better it'll taste - so if you can hold off hunger until your raid's over it'll be totally worthwhile. As a matter of fact, it's even more delicious as a leftover than it is the first serving! Serve it with some grated cheese on top, if that's your thing. This recipe can easily be doubled if you're hosting a LAN party.

Chili-Mac: For a yummy meal that will make your chili last even longer, boil some elbow macaroni and mix it in with your chili. Deliciously simple.
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