Lunch Week 15: Kamut Stew

So every Sunday, I head over to the kitchen to whip up a big batch of food for lunch next week. Yes, I brown bag. And I almost always do it, unless I become too busy to even buy cold cuts from the deli. I do it for several reasons being health, finance, and laziness. Now, you may think that spending hours on a day off to prep and cook five meals at once is hardly lazy. But let me remind you, I hate it when the time comes to decide what to eat for lunch every day. I work in Midtown so the choices are endless. My problem, the more choices, the harder it is for me. So it's much easier for me to have my lunch ready and already decided.

So my lunch for the week: Kamut Stew

This week's lunch was more about cleaning out the kitchen than making something really good. I'm trying not to buy new ingredients especially when I have unused things both in the refrigerator/freezer and pantry. So I looked through what I had and found an unused bag of dry kamut from my Ancient Grain demonstration from last year. Hmm, it reminded me of this farro recipe I had seen earlier. So I decided to finally use it in a stew type dish filled with vegetables and sauce with homemade marinara and leftover red wine beef sauce.

First thing I did was cook the kamut because it takes about an hour and a half on the stove. Just fill the pot with water, bring to boil, add salt, and kamut. The back of the bag shows the proportions (3 cups of water per 1 cup of dry kamut). Boil and simmer for approximately an hour and half until soft.

 While that cooked, I prepared the stew. I chopped up carrots, fennel, onions, celery, and garlic.

 Into a large pan to cook down until very soft.

Then I added marinara sauce, red wine beef sauce, and leftover veal osso buco sauce. It was pretty much whatever I was still storing in the freezer.

I let that come to a simmer then I added frozen spinach and the cooked kamut.

Last step, is the leftover cheese which was grated mozzarella and crumbled feta cheese. This added a rich creaminess to the dish without making it cheesy. It was almost like adding cream.

So how did it taste? Meh. The hodge podge of ingredients wasn't anything exciting and tasted like a rich vegetable soup. The kamut is nutty and added lots of great chewy texture. Be warned though, it is extremely filling. It feels as if it expanded in my stomach. I ate lunch at 1pm and wasn't hungry until 9pm that night. So I guess if you're looking for a filling carb, this is it.