Hearty Autumn Cholent

Starting on Friday night of last week, these past 6 days have all been part of the 8 day long Jewish holiday of Sukkot! (I'll never forget the puzzled faces of my college friends when I first tried to explain Sukkot to them during our freshman year: "Suk-what?" :-) As I'm sure you've already noticed, given my ramblings about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Autumn is the season for Jewish holidays, raisin Challah bread, and honey cakes. As always, I am deeply moved and touched by all of your kind words on my notes and mutterings about the holidays from my family's cultural history - Jewish, Deep South Southern, a little bit of who knows what... :-).

It's rather fortuitous that Sukkot lasts for 8 whole days, because it requires a bit of prepratory construction... As a celebration of the latter part of the Old Testament Exodus story, in which the Jewish people spent 40 years in the desert after the Exodus from slavery, the sukkot holiday involves building a tent! A big, wooden, open-roofed tent, where all meals are served for the whole week... Naturally, as a child I thought this was the most glorious holiday - imagine camping in your own front yard for a whole week, complete with lavish picnics for every meal, and you have Sukkot in a nutshell.

This year, I was reminded by wonderful Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe of a classic Jewish dish that I hadn't fixed in far too long - cholent. Dating all the way back to 1180, cholent arose from the Jewish custom of not actively cooking new dishes on the sabbath, the day of rest, which resulted in Jewish families placing a large stew pot, filled with all the ingredients for a meal, close to the fire to simmer and heat slowly over the entire sabbath day. Cholent was also the ideal way for poor farming and shopkeeping families to provide an economical, nourishing meal for family members and guests alike. Traditionally a thick stew, based around a combination of vegetables (usually potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables), grains (typically rice, wheat, or barley), and legumes (most often beans of some sort, which could pre-soak as well as cook in the cholent broth), it's easy to see how cholent is entirely suited to the icy Eastern European winters from which it arose.

Vegetable stews are often traditional main courses during the holiday of Sukkot, both in celebration of the Fall harvest (timed exactly at the end of Israel's harvesting season, Sukkot is at heart a Fall harvest festival) and for practical reasons - when one is dining outside, in the evening, in October, a warm stew is most welcome...

Cholent is an utterly adaptable dish, and this year, just as I saw my mother do nearly every Friday afternoon throughout my entire childhood, I simply put a little of this, and a little of that, into the stew pot, and then merely stirred occasionally as the aroma wafted throughout the house, very effectively chasing away the gloom of yet another thunderstorm outside our windows.

Every week, my father would ask the same question: "The ingredients are so simple - how can this taste so good?" And every year, my mother would simply smile: "It's magic..."

Hearty Autumn Cholent

1 lb turkey sausage, casings removed OR 1 lb. sausage style soy crumbles, such as Morningstar Farms brand

3 cups vegetable broth

3 potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes

2 onions, cut into 1" chunks

1 (14.5 oz) can pinto beans, undrained

1 (14.5 oz) can chickpeas, undrained

1 cup corn kernels, fresh or frozen

1 lb roasted chicken, coarsely shredded OR 1 lb tempeh, cut into 1" cubes

1 1/2 T apple cider vinegar

1/8 cup minced parsley

1 T rosemary

2 cups cooked brown rice

Minced chives, for garnish

~ In a small skillet coated with olive oil cooking spray, cook and crumble the turkey sausage or the sausage style soy crumbles until nicely browned.

~ Scoop the turkey sausage or the soy crumbles into a large stockpot or slow cooker, and stir in the broth, potatoes, onions, pinto beans, chickpeas, corn, roasted chicken or tempeh, vinegar, parsley, and rosemary.

~ Allow the stew to simmer, either in the stockpot or in the slow cooker, for as long as you fancy... At the very least, it needs about 5 hours to properly allow everything to meld together and the potatoes to become gloriously, meltingly tender... If you put it on a low setting, it can simmer happily for up to 12 hours.

~ 2 hours before you want to serve the cholent, stir in the cooked brown rice, and add more broth if the mixture is becoming too thick.

~ Serve it nice deep bowls, steaming hot! You can garnish with some minced chives, if you fancy...