screaming stew

[cellio]

The pot-luck invitation calls for dishes based on song lyrics. I wanted to make something parve (neither meat nor dairy), to keep my options open.

Carrot Juice is Murder (also known as "Screams of the Vegetables") by the Arrogant Worms seemed to be just the thing. Excerpt:

I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream scream scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (having their insides revealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy (burning off calories)
How do you think that feels (bet it hurts really bad)
Carrot juice constitutes murder (and that's a real crime)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves (let my vegetables grow)
It's time to stop all this gardening (it's dirty as hell)
Let's call a spade a spade (it's a spade it's a spade it's a spade)

The following is a chronicle, not a recipe. :-)

large crock pot
3 carrots
2 parsnips
4 small red-skinned potatoes
3 turnips
3 leeks
2 small stalks celery
1 bulb of garlic (whole cloves) [1]
46-oz bottle V8

Render all the veggies into small chunks/slices. Put all ingredients into the crock pot on high. Apply salt and pepper generously, and a little cumin just because. Leave for dinner and S'lichot services.

Come back four hours later. Inspect pot. Decide that was too much liquid, so add a quarter-bag of dry lentils to soak up some of it. Also add several handfuls of fresh green beans, broken into small pieces. Set heat to low and put on a timer so it'll come on early in the morning. (Pot-luck is at 2.)

About 8:00AM: crock pot turns on (time very fuzzy). You won't catch me up at that hour on a Sunday just to babysit food!

11:00AM, add:
2 diced tomatoes
about 1C broccoli florets
about 1C cauliflower florets
several big handfuls shredded cabbage (maybe 3C?)
more black pepper
some garlic powder, 'cause I'm just not getting my garlic experience here
generous portion of crushed red pepper [2]

Plan: garnish with sprouts. Reality: sprouts bought on Tuesday were thoroughly wilted on Sunday. Oh well. Maybe I'll garnish with sliced scallions.

I wasn't able to work radishes into it, but I got everything else. And it tastes good so far.

Footnotes:

[1] Garlic's not mentioned in the song (neither are leeks or parsnips, for that matter, but I had them and they're good in stew), but everything is better with garlic, and I tend to treat it like a vegetable rather than like a seasoning.

[2] How did they miss crushed pepper? It seemed an obvious addition.

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

This is reminding me (for some reason) of one of the weirdest things I ever heard on NPR: a feature bit about the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra (as I believe it was called). This was a group that performs with instruments made of hollowed-out & carved vegetables. Apparently, they have to remake the instruments before every performance so they don't end up holding something rotten and stinky. The sounds these instruments made were ... unique.

[cellio]

Ooh, I've heard of that, but I didn't have the group's name before. That sounds thoroughly wacky!

Some vegetables would probably dry ok for long-term use. There are some ethnic instruments that are made out of dried-out gourds, for example. I wonder if they would consider that to be cheating.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they would see gourds and the like as cheating. The only veggies I'm certain that I remember hearing about were carrots and onions. (I know there were more, and I have a feeling that soft/wet vegetables predominated, but I don't recall 100%.)

[cellio]

Ok, I'm really curious: how do you play an onion? (And did the musician playing it cry? :-) )

I'm guessing the carrot was bored down the center to make a wind instrument.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

You know, I couldn't tell you how they played the onion. NPR didn't provide a full description of how they carved the vegetables. I do remember that it made a sort of whistling sound, though, so I guess it was hollowed out and blown -- or something like that. (There was another contraption that had a trombone-style slide, though for the life of me I can't remember what veggies were involved.)

[cellio]

Oh right. You did say NPR, and I completely spaced on that "R". :-)