At this point I must confess that it is part of my vast ignorance of popular culture that I have never seen an episode of Friends. I have only watched bits of Seinfeld (although I like his wife’s cookbook), haven’t seen the X-files (although agent Scully and I both have an ouroboros tattoo) or the West Wing (sorry, no clever parenthetical for that one). But I have certainly heard of Friends and I even recognized that Ross was a character’s name. See? I’m not hopeless.

So this is sort of like knowing a relative of someone famous. Like the time that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sister babysat my daughter…

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1. About Food In The Fort
2. Upgrading Food In The Fort
3. Our favorite lumpy garlic mashed potatoes

In fact, now that I think about it, this may have been the very first meal I ever made for Catherine. I don’t think I’ll forget the look of surprise and delight as she walked in the door and the warm, fishy aroma first hit her, or the look of joy that overtook her face on first tasting it. As I said above, Catherine and I both go nuts for this time-saving stew which leads me to wonder why I waited almost a whole year to make it again.

I mean, really, why don’t we make this more often? It’s so simple to make that you can chop up everything the night before, fry up the bacon and onion the next morning and toss it all in the crockpot before you leave for work. By the time you come home, you’ve got a wonderful, tasty and satisfying home-cooked meal that beats the pants off any pizza. And if you knew how much I love pizza, you’d know how strong of a statement that is.

You’ll want to serve your stew with your favorite cheap beer and a nice crusty bread to sop up the soup left at the bottom of your bowl.

Hearty Crockpot Fish Stew
Ingredients

• 2 lbs. fish (flounder tastes great, but almost any oldfish will do), chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 4 med. potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 lb. bacon, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 med. onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 tbsp. dried parsley
• 3 tsp. garlic pepper salt
• 2 tsp. chili powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground red pepper
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 (8 oz.) can evaporated milk

Preparation

1. Chop up your fish, bacon, onion and potatoes.
2. Throw the potatoes, fish, and mushrooms into the crockpot and add the water.
3. Saute the bacon and onion together until the bacon is just this side of crisp and the onion is golden and transluscent.
4. Spoon the bacon, onion and bacon grease on top of the fish, potatoes and mushrooms.
5. Add seasonings.
6. Give everything a good stir or two so everybody gets acquainted.
7. Put the lid on and cook on low six to eight hours or on high four to five hours.
8. Stir the evaporated milk in about an hour before eating if cooking on low, or a half hour if cooking on high.

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Our Favorite Lumpy Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients

• 6 medium potatoes, chunked but definitely not peeled
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, pressed
• some milk
• lots of butter
• salt

Preparation

1. Boil the potatoes until tender and then drain in a colander
2. In the potato pot (let’s not wash any more dishes than we have to, okay?), melt a Tbsp or so of butter and saute the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent
3. Turn off the heat and plunk the potatoes back into the pot
4. Mash everything together with the milk, more butter and salt to taste
5. Don’t forget to leave in some of the lumps!

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1. Food in the Fort mentioned on WBlog
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