I have always wondered what a Sunday dinner would feel like if I were a mobster.  If you haven’t guessed, The Sopranos is my all-time favorite show.  It might as well define television as a whole, because half the junk on now does not even compare…

I decided to brew up my own version of a nice Sunday dinner (If there is such a thing while living on a college budget, this was it).  I had a bunch on ingredients ready to go in my first stew.  Keep in mind this was also my first time using a slow-cooker.  Painfully-slow, rather.  I chopped up a bunch of veggies and threw them in with some kidney beans, beef broth, and diced tomatoes.  Lets just say the soup didn’t go over as well with my roommates as the sweet aroma of my Arturo Fuente “Short Story.” This little cigar is short and stout, rips like a cuban, and comes out my spout!  For six bucks, it rivals any other cigar in this range I’ve had the chance to puff on.

So I had the fine cigar, stewing  vegetable medley, all I needed was a cheap bottle of red wine.  Luckily, Meijer had some Aussie wine on special (2 bottles for 12 bucks).  Cha-Ching.  It wasn’t the greatest Merlot, but it definately helped in biding my time while I waited on dinner.  Needless to say, I was living the good life Sunday night…Sopranos style.

By the time the stew was “cooked” and didn’t literally melt the roof of your mouth, it was time to cap off my night… more like weekend of utter indulgence.  I boiled the kidney beans for 10 minutes before throwing them int he mix as suggested, but for some reason they were very firm.  I don’t know if that means they were over- or under-cooked.  (If someone knows, do tell).  Either way, after a bottle of wine and a nice stogie, it tasted good to me!

One of my roommates had some of the stew/chili/soup, and I have yet to ask his thoughts.  Lets just say when I woke up this morning, I had to pick out a number of kidney beans of our garbage disposal-less sink to finish rinsing the dishes…Ugh.  Never sign a lease with four other gentlemen if the tiny kitchen is crowed with everything except the most important thing…a garbage disposal.  (We do have a dishwasher, though.  And that is really the most important kitchen appliance..I just figured it went without saying.)

Well, there you have it.  The college Sunday dinner.  A few hold-ups, but still a welcomed break from constant….studying.  Bon Apetite-