Stew Take Two

I'm starting this blog with entries about what led up to me wanting to keep it. This post is backdated to approximately the date it happened.

I had some time off again the week after I made the knishes and decided to cook some more for my family even though I still wasn't eating. I gave the Byzantine Vegetable Stew another shot and made my first BIG cooking mistake.

The recipe states:

"Place all of the ingredients in the casserole dish, cover, and cook in microwave oven on "high" for about 1 hour, mixing well every 20 minutes…If you don't have a microwave oven, and since the stew is very thick, it would be best to cook it in a regular oven at 350 degree F. Even in a conventional oven, it would be best to mix the stew about every 20 minutes as described above. It might be necessary to add a little more water with regular oven cooking so that the stew doesn't dry out."

I wasn't able to use the microwave that day, so I put it in the oven. I didn't think about what I was doing, I just followed the instructions, so it didn't occur to me that there may be differences between the microwave and the oven in addition to moisture. Like, you know, time. SIX HOURS after I'd put the stew in the oven, the vegetables still weren't completely soft and my family had already given up on eating it, had leftovers and went to bed. Suck.

That said, I did get it done sooner or later and my family loved it the next day. So it's still a really good recipe, just be prepared to use the microwave or clear your calendar for the entire day (since you need to mix every twenty minutes).