Surviving the Snow, Another Saga of The Blizzard of Tevet 5774, December 2013, A Recipe, Too

I must remind you that it was freezing cold in our Shiloh home during the blizzard. We just have electric heat, and there was no electriciity.  There also wasn't water.  This is how I dressed in the house. I wore a coat over the sweatshirts and sweaters if I went outside. And I also added heavy gloves over the leather ones.

It was definitely not easy to get in and out of the house, so I walked with a broomless broomstick.

But all the broomsticks in the world, as helpful as mine was for walking, didn't help put water in the faucets. For that we took snow, nice clean snow.  I boiled up snow for coffee, tea and bean-lentil stew.

Winter Stew, Snow Optional

Ingredients:

• beans, soaked or from a can
• 1 cup total (or more) of brown (or white if you prefer) rice and lentils mixed
• 1 large onion (or 2 smaller ones)
• Tamari Sauce
• Optional, only use if you won't damage the food in the refrigerator during electric outage, a few carrots
• a bit of vegetable oil
• lots of snow, or at least 4 cups of water

Instructions

• cook the beans in triple the water for an hour if they're not from a can
• cook together the beans, lentils and rice in the water or melted snow
• cut the onion and carrot and add to the other ingredients
• poor in a bit of vegetable oil
• cover and cook on high until it boils,  then lower the flame so it simmers for at least an hour
• you may have to add a bit more snow or water
• season to taste
• after you think it's ready, keep it covered and wait at least 10 minutes