Stewing

Reading a review of Patricia Pearson's new book A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine), which sounds like a short tour through my own mind, I realize that my anxieties don't follow me into the kitchen, and that's probably why I like to cook. Food is also an excellent depression and anxiety medication, although over-dosing one's self is a danger.

Here's one of the best anti-anxiety kitchen remedies: winter stew. Frankly, it's much better than pot roast, described below. My mother's stew was thrown together the minute she slammed home from work, while she stood at the stove in her coat trying to get her five fractious children fed fast, but it's a good one:

First, put the butter in the freezer. Trust me. Next, set a big pot of lightly-salted water on high to boil. Quickly scrub four potatoes, cut into 1 inch dice, and pop into the water, even if it's not yet boiling. Peel and slice 6 carrots (and a couple of parsnips, if you like them) and add them to the water too. Peel and eighth (as opposed to quarter) lengthwise two white onions and toss them into the stewpot.

There are the veg cooking, now the meat: cube and brown, in a large frying pan, one pound of round steak, and toss a couple of tablespoons of flour into the frying pan as the meat approaches browning, so that the flour has time to brown and cook a little too. Add enough flour to absorb the fat released by the meat, making a kind of roux around and among the meat cubes. Salt and ground pepper in now, but go easy on the salt. Open a large can of diced tomatoes and use the can lid to help drain the juice into the frying pan, stirring well to smooth out all the flour/roux lumps. Add vegetable water from the stewpot to make a gravy, and add the diced tomatoes to the vegetables in the stewpot. When the gravy is smooth, check the vegetables in the stewpot: there should only be about the same amount of water in the pot as volume of gravy in the frying pan. If necessary, remove (and reserve, because you might want to add it back later) some of the water in the stewpot. Then pour the frying-pan-full of meat and gravy into the stewpot, turn down the heat to medium, and let it all bubble away melding while you throw some biscuits in the oven.

Cheese Biscuits made FAST
(Also known as Current Biscuits, after Azana)

Heat the oven to 450º

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 t salt
3 t baking powder
Fluff all that with a fork. Grate 1/3 cup of freezing cold butter into the flour, using the medium grater, not the lemon zest size. Stir lightly, so that the butter gets coated with flour. Dice enough cheddar cheese to make about half a cup, and toss that into the bowl, turning to coat as well. You can add half a cup of washed currants, too, if those please you; or some chopped parsley and green onions, if you want to go mad. Once all the dry ingredients are stirred together, pour in 3/4 cup of cold milk—maybe as much as a cup, depending on the humidity and the flour—and mix very gently just until all the dough is damp. Drop the batter from the mixing spoon onto a cookie sheet lined with a silpat mat, and bake for 10-15 minutes on the top rack until the biscuits are risen and browned.

When the biscuits are done, toss a cup of frozen green peas into the stew, and call those children to the table.