kasha sauerkraut stew

three years ago, when my then-vegan sister bought me a copy of "vegan with a vengeance" for christmas, i thought i'd found heaven, and that isa was an angel sent to save us all. i mean, here it was - delicious food that happened to be vegan, instead of the then-typical recipes for "meat"loaf and "cheeze" and... other not-food grossness.

but now i'm just tired of the entire post-punk-kitchen vegan domination, and (with exceptions) my new attitude is to look at their recipes as jumping off points.

i tried the "kasha phyllo pie" from veganomicon a while back and was delighted with the filling - kasha and mushrooms, and then a middle layer of sauerkraut right from the jar. (sauerkraut is my favorite vegetable.*) but i had to wonder - why anyone would ruin such a good stew by putting it in a phyllo crust? the flakiness of the crust conflicted with the heartiness of the filling. not to mention the clashing flavors. and, the filling slid out. (i think a buckwheat pie crust may've been there.)

anyway, tonight i started with a plan to make it soup. after a long day and the knowledge of an even earlier day tomorrow - *saturday* - (and after realizing after two hours of being a bit chilly that the heat was off and it was 59 degrees in my apartment)... i decided i needed some soup.

halfway through i remembered i don't like mushrooms floating around in soup, and so i kept it thicker - i was thinking more like a stew, but kasha is almost a grain so it's more like a pilaf. and, it's delicious.

so.

1. cook an onion and a stalk of celery and a carrot in some olive oil until they brown a bit (in retrospect i would've added more carrot). add a ton of cremini mushrooms and cook until they lose their moisture.

2. add a couple teaspoons of caraway and a teaspoon of coriander and about a cup and a half of kasha and mix it around real good for a couple minutes

3. then add your liquid - i added about three cups of water and one bouillon cube (but if i had to do it over i'd throw in a half cup of dark flavorful microbrew or a red wine) and the kasha soaked it up in a flash. in fact, i almost burned it because i started writing about it before it was done cooking. i never looked to see how quickly kasha cooks. turns out, it's fast.

4. add some black pepper, and throw in about half a jar of STRAINED sauerkraut - i can't emphasize enough - the secret of good sauerkraut is controlling the acidity - the amount of liquid you let in the final recipe! too much liquid and it's gross. but, if you wash it off it doesn't have that delicious kick.

alright, i've gotta go read some tolstoy before i lose this warm russia-loving mood!

* we put together a cookbook of my grandmother's recipes about a decade ago, and the first four recipes in the "vegetables" section were all sauerkraut. and although i do love sauerkraut at least five times more than the average person, it's not my favorite vegetable. i actually can't remember what my favorite vegetable is. i'll figure it out some day.