Admittedly, we’ve had some almost beyond-belief beautiful days here the past few weeks, with a nice helping of sun and blue skies as far as the eye could see, but we’d still have to be in full-out denial to ignore the fact that it’s now fall.
Fall, autumn, whatever it pleases you to call this season, we have it right here, right now.
That fact and a missing recipe prompted Snohomish cook Valerie Tackett to write.
“I sure hope you can help me! I moved a few years back and misplaced some of my favorite recipes.
“One I miss the most is a clipping I had for Mulligan stew from AmbersC4 Restaurant. I remember it called for hamburger, canned tomatoes, spices, cabbage and, I think, carrots. I’m not sure.
“I miss it! This is the perfect time of year for a big pot of it. Please help!”
If this is your first meeting with this must-make concoction, let me fill you in on its past…
Lorrie Rotherick, manager of the comfy family restaurant then called Ambers on north Broadway in Everett, originally shared this recipe with us in a Dec. 1, 1993, Forum column and told us, “We are very pleased to extend to you and your readers our old family recipe for what we call Mulligan stew.
“This is a great nutritious, low-cost, one-pot meal for any family to enjoy. It’s great served with just bread and butter. And it’s always better the next few days!”
And great it proved to be, because readers who fixed it and later misplaced the recipe wrote to the Forum for another copy … readers who had missed it, but heard about it, wrote, requesting a copy … and some cooks just plain asked for more than one copy, because they wanted to send the how-to along to their mother, sister, aunt, friend …
If the truth be told, between the time this stew appeared in print, and today, more copies have gone out for this recipe than you probably are old, doubled! So let’s give it a go again:
Ambers Restaurant Mulligan stew
6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
6 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
1 stalk celery heart, diced
1 large white onion, diced
1/2 medium head cabbage, chopped
Water
1 1/2 pounds hamburger (about)
3/4 teaspoon basil
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon seasoning salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 beef bouillon cubes
2 cans (29 ounces each) chopped tomatoes, undrained
In very large soup pot or kettle, combine potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and cabbage; add enough water to cover vegetables by about 2 inches. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender.
In saucepan, brown hamburger; discard about half of the grease, then add hamburger and remaining drippings to vegetables. Stir in basil, garlic powder, seasoning salt, pepper, bouillon cubes and tomatoes. Simmer over low heat, covered, about 1 hour.
The next Forum will appear in Wednesday’s Good Life section.
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