Brunswick Stew

Brunswick Stew and Cheddar-Buttermilk Madeline Muffins

After a weekend of most awesome food and photography, I now realize the camera did not save any photos except for this one (and several of Matti the Wonderpup).  OH the horror of losing my Kentucky Bourbon Braised Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Rhubarb Ketchup!  OH the horror of losing the step-by-step ingredients prep for the above soup!

Recently I signed up to become a member of the Daring Bakers and Daring Kitchen Bloggers.  But their instructions for maintaining a membership in good standing are way too complicated for this blogger.  I never could figure out all of their rules.  This will likely be my only Daring-related post, and I will lose my "membership."  Here is what I learned from this experience: each month the Daring folks post a recipe that all members must prepare, photograph, and blog about.  Each month I panicked trying to find the recipes and dates of postings.  For three months I failed to make sense of this crazy club.

Here is something else I learned.  Brunswick Stew was originally made using squirrel and rabbit.  My version makes use of poached chicken breast and a few strips of ham.  The stew also (sometimes) calls for onions, Lima beans, potatoes, carrots, and peas. 

Lima beans bring back terrifying memories of canned soup from my childhood.  I knew that I could not revisit any variety of Lima beans that hinted at that unappealing combination of grainy and slimy.  Fresh baby Lima beans are unavailable from my grocer, so I perused the freezer section and found some Speckled Butter Beans, which cooked up beautifully in the stew.  Next to the Butter Beans on the shelf was another legume varietal that I had never cooked before: Crowder Peas, which a quick search on the internet tells me are also known as Black Eyed Peas.  Hmmm.  They didn't look like Black Eyed Peas but they were still delicious.  And while our windy, rainy, chilly weekend weather was perfect for a sturdy warm soup, I am anxious to experiment with the remaining peas/beans perhaps cold in summer salads or baked in maple to be served alongside BBQ.