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   Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:33:11 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

   • Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

   I've been back on my gruel nonsense again and it's been good for me, and delicious

   I've "come up with" what I think is my favorite gruel recipe yet, and @mlemweb seems to agree it's really good

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:33:40 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     Perhaps I will do another "Christine's Kitchen" video about gruel, and why gruel is great actually

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:56:01 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     - Add besan (it's a bit bitter, you could also mash a can of cooked chickpeas or use split yellow/red lentils) and oats (unflavored, no additives, can be quick cooking) to saucepan. Less than a cup.
     - Add a lot of water. Add salt and black pepper.
     - Cook for about 15-30 minutes, until thick
     - Saute/braise cabbage, carrots in any spices, olive oil, salt
     - Pour into gruel into bowls
     - Add cheese if you like (cottage cheese, shredded cheddar works well)
     - Top with vegetables

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:59:16 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     Like Mr. Woodhouse says in Emma, you want the gruel to be "thin, but not too thin." However, it does thicken more than you might expect.

     Gruel is a thin porridge, in essence. It's good savory style or sweet. It was actually a very common food all across the world until victorian workhouses built their much abused version of it. Everyone thinks of Dickens and Oliver Twist.

     The primary food of most of the world, historically, has been gruel of some sort.

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     baconandcoconut (baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:00:37 JST baconandcoconut

     in reply to

     @cwebber I hope you get a whole stone kitchen and medieval tools vibe going for your gruel recipe empire.

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     baconandcoconut (baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:01:27 JST baconandcoconut

     in reply to

     @cwebber People aren't going back far enough for their trad wife escapism.

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:02:50 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     Gruel, and pottage generally, has been the primary source of food *especially* as peasant fare across the world. (Of pottage generally, it still is.)

     Gruel was the staple food of the ancient greeks; bread was less common and eaten more sparingly, especially for travel.

     In medieval Europe, the primary food made in villages would be a giant cauldron of gruel, shared by the entire community, continuously changing and rotating in ingredients.

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:06:09 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     The supserset of gruel is pottage, of which is certainly still the most common food. The distinction between them is sparse.

     These days, you can make many kinds of gruels and pottage trivially with no need to watch or stir a pot. Simply use a rice cooker or electric pressure cooker, which will do all the work, and you'll have cheap and delicious food for days!

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:08:24 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     Despite the Dickensian associations with victorian workhouses, Gruel wasn't just for the poor. It was considered healthy and common to eat in society generally.

     In the book Emma by Jane Austen, Mr. Woodhouse (Emma's father) is a hypochondriac who eats a diet primarily of gruel.

     Mr. Woodhouse was right! Pottage is good, gruel is good. Every time I switch back to eating gruel, my health improves.

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 04:10:34 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber

     Btw this recipe is called "Perfect Morgan Gruel" because it's the gruel variant of a food I sometimes make for @mlemweb (but admittedly, not recently enough) called "Perfect Morgan Food"

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     Anand Philip (anandphilipc@sigmoid.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 05:36:33 JST Anand Philip

     in reply to

     @cwebber we call this Kadhi in India

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 05:38:49 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • Anand Philip

     @anandphilipc Kadhi is certainly one of the gruels I respect most so that makes sense even though I don't suspect my version would be considered an authentic Kadhi with the oats and (American-style) cottage cheese

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:53:25 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

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     • Damu

     @dunderhead in the recipe I gave, I put things on top of it

     but sometimes I eat just the porridge part itself, sometimes I put things on top

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     Damu (dunderhead@social.vivaldi.net)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:53:26 JST Damu

     in reply to

     @cwebber do you eat gruel as it is? Or with some form of bread/rice?

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 11:19:14 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

     in reply to

     • econads

     @econads yeah it's saute the vegetables separately and top the gruel with it. But you can cook vegetables into gruel too, and indeed both have historically been common!

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     econads (econads@mendeddrum.org)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 11:19:15 JST econads

     in reply to

     @cwebber how do you combine the cabbage and gruel? Saute it separately and then immediately add it? Or it's the vegetables with which you top it?