First Cholent

I made our first cholent of the fall this past Shabbos. Quiche has been our Shabbos lunch staple for most of the summer. I just can't stand to have the crock pot on in the heat and neither of us particularly like cholent.

Fall has arrived in our little corner of the world, however, and cholent actually sounded good this week. Here's the brew I used (I practice free-form cholent making, so quantities may not be exact or even very important):

Cassoulet Cholent
* approx 1/5 c. dry beans - I used a mix of what we had on hand - speed soaked in boiling water
* fake bacon - one half-pound package - we get something here called "beef fry" - it's beef made to look and taste like bacon. Yummerific.
* 1 pkg Eppie's hotdogs
* a few golden nugget potatoes
* one onion, chopped
* splash of vinegar
* a few squirts of ketchup
* a few tablespoons organic molasses?
* about a tablespoon dry mustard powder
* a generous amount of Montreal Steak Spice (THE spice-of-choice in our house)
* water - I filled the crockpot about 3/4 of the way to the top of the ingredients

It was lovely. I'm not a bean person, but even I enjoyed this. There was enough water that the hotdogs plumped instead of shriveling. The fake bacon melted and gave a wonderful flavor. It was pretty runny, but we're low-carbing it these days. Adding a bit of barley would've made it creamier and thicker.

Will I make cholent next week? Who knows. We were watching the Food Network at my inlaws yesterday and saw a program on Hungarian comfort food. My husband's bio dad came from Hungary and DH grew up with that cuisine. We may try a goulash-y cholent next week. Or we may have Broccoli-Cheese Quiche!