Eats - White Bean and Vegetable Stew with Oat (and misc. other flours) Soda Bread and Yogurt, Honey, Cranberry Soda Bread

White bean and vegetable stew

For the broth:

Coarsely chop 3 onions, 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 1 leek, one red bell pepper, 6 cloves of garlic, a handful of mushrooms, and a few outer cabbage leaves. Brown in 2 tbsp. vegetable oil for about 10 minutes. Mash 4 tbsp tomato paste into the mixture, then add 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp rosemary, black pepper, white pepper, salt, one bunch Italian parsley, and 8 cups (2 quarts) water. Bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer about 45 minutes. Strain, pressing as much liquid as possible out of the vegetables.

While that simmers, cube 3 cups potatoes (I used french fingerlings and small yellow potatoes), chop 4 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 1 leek, 1 cup onions, 1 shallot, one half head of cabbage, and 3 tbsp Italian parsley. When approximately 20 minutes remain for the broth to simmer, brown the onions and shallot in 2 tbsp butter, then add the potatoes, celery, carrots, leek and white beans (I used 2 cans in this, because the recipe wasn’t planned, but if you use dried or frozen, it ended up about 2.5 cups). Add salt, black pepper, and white pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes. While cooking, make rivels (see below). Add the cabbage and parsley, cook approximately 3 minutes, add the broth, and cook together about 5 minutes. Add the rivels and cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot with bread.

The broth fixings

Rivels:

1/3 cup flour, 2 egg yolks (from the yogurt bread, if you make it), tsp salt.

Option 1 - Put the flour in a bowl, make a hole in the middle, add the yolks and salt, pinch it in. Continue to pinch it with your fingers until cornmeal consistency.

Option 2 - I almost ran out of time, and was forced to discover a very efficient way of doing this. I used my tiny chopper and put everything together and blended. They ended up perfect. My mother will almost certainly cringe when she reads this.

Miscellaneous flours

Oat (and misc. other flours) soda bread:

I used this recipe, but forgot what I was doing at the store and bought flaxseed and spelt flour instead of more oats (don’t ask), so ultimately I doubled the recipe, using 4 cups of miscellaneous flour (rye, spelt, flax seed, and oat) as well as 4 cups of regular flour.

Oat and miscellaneous flours soda bread

Yogurt, honey, cranberry soda bread:

Combine 2 1/4 c. flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk together 1 3/4 c. plain yogurt and 2 egg whites (If you’re making the stew, too, save the yolks). Fold into dry ingredients along with 1/2 c. dried cranberries and 2 tbsp honey. Bake in a greased large bread pan at 400 degs F or 200 degs C for 30 minutes.

The two soda breads

*The center of this bread DOES NOT like to cook. It’s delicious, so worth it, but keep that in mind.