Warning: Food porn.

I posted this on Facebook earlier this morning, but thought you might also appreciate this kitchen adventure.

This meal started a week ago, on Saturday, October 5. That’s when I bought a bag of poi as we shuffled through Times Supermarket. It had been delivered the day before (the ties on the bag are color coded to let you know how long it has been sitting in the store). When we got home, I left it out on the kitchen counter. And there it stayed for most of the week. I finally got around to mixing it (you have to mix in water by hand to get it ready to eat). What a treat. Hopefully you can see that it has a pink or reddish tinge, rather than blue-gray. This is, in my opinion, the best kind. And it had developed a nice sour tang. The best.

Then yesterday (Sunday), we were driving back from Kaaawa and stopped at the Safeway store in Kaneohe, where we used to do a lot of our shopping. There I found a tray of stew meat, Hawaii grass-fed beef. At 50% off regular price. So it went into our cart, and I started thinking about stew as we drove home. Later in the day, we went to Whole Foods (just a couple of minutes away in Kahala Mall) and found beautiful heirloom tomatoes on sale. I went for a bag of multicolored baby carrots, and also a leek, along with a bottle of inexpensive red wine, all three for the stew.

Some people prefer a stew that’s like a thick soup, with lots of gravy. I set out for something without all the gravy, more akin to a dry curry. Enough of various liquids through the cooking process to keep everything moist, but not to have it all floating in gravy.

I started cooking about 4 p.m., browning the meat in a pan with coarsely chopped onion, leek cut in thick rounds, adding garlic (I just dropped in a half-dozen or so whole garlic cloves), salt and pepper, some dried thyme, then a cup or so of the red wine. Left it to simmer, adding wine or chicken broth as necessary. About an hour into it, I added mushrooms and some leftover spinach leaves. After 10 minutes or so I then adjusted the lid on the pan a bit to allow the steam to escape and reduced the liquid until the pan was almost dry and the meat mix got nice and browned, then added more liquid and repeated several times. About 20 minutes before serving, I added a handful of the colorful carrots and a couple of stalks of celery cut into largish pieces.

Served with a plate of the tomatoes, avocado that we brought back from our friends’ yard in Kaaawa, and a small tray of olives. More red wine on the table. Poi.

And I almost forgot to mention that we each topped it off with a small bowl of organic raspberries and a bit of Cool Whip (not organic at all).

Good tastes from start to finish.

Several photos follow.