Although I tend to focus primarily upon the geeker-side of my life here, I do have other hobbies as well. My favorites are classic videogame systems, cooking and botany – my turn-ons include – oh, wait! It’s not that kind of list!

Back on track. Today, I felt like experimenting in the kitchen. As lewd as that may sound, I ended up with a wonderful tasty treat, and figured I might as well record it here for posterity.

Shawn’s Goulish Goulash

Ingredients required:

· 16oz beef kielbasa (cooked) · 16oz peas (canned and mooshy are best) · 16oz carrots (diced, mooshy) · 1 large onion (coarsly chopped) · 2-4 medium potatos (about a half pound, diced) · 16oz corn · 8oz uncooked pasta (macaroni is good) · 42oz prepared chicken broth You’re going to need a big pot. Use at least a four quart one, if you have it. Keep in mind that this is a great ‘stone soup’ base!

Cook and drain the pasta well.

Add chicken broth, potatos, onion, peas, corn, and carrots. Let simmer as you dice, cube, or otherwise mangle the kielbasa into otherwise-edible bite-sized pieces.

Fold meat into this concoction, cover, and let stew on a low heat for the next hour or so, stirring occasionally, and adding water and spices as you see fit, depending on how thick you want the base to be. Skim the surface, if applicable, and serve!

Serves: Many. Probably an extended family in one seating, or two starving college students.

I know this seems odd and quite wrong to add chicken broth to a beef dish – but this works out perfectly! The chicken broth is excellent for bringing out the sweetness of the carrots, and the potatos just soak it up, quite literally. The kielbasa is rather fatty – as it expands into the dish, it will release it’s flavour, assimilating most of the chicken broth. I prefer this to just using a water-based broth as the flavour of the kielbasa is too overpowering, and worse, the broth is too weak.

BAM! Oops, sorry, Emeril!

[How embarrassing. No one I knew has ever heard of mixing chicken broth and beef. I’ve since been enlightened that I’ve redisovered ‘beef chuicken stew’]