Brunswick Stew

 I made some Brunswick Stew last month, and decided I needed to share the way I made it.  It's not so much of a recipe, but more of a process.  OK, so you sling a bunch of different stuff into a pot, cook it up and serve it. 

Wait a minute, that's pretty much how this dish evolved.  It consisted of leftovers, random bits of game, veggies and some BBQ sauce, cooked to a nice consistency and then served.  

It has evolved however, the more modern versions of this recipe uses leftover BBQ meat, burnt ends as it were, plus bits and pieces of any leftover BBQ from the night before.  You can read about the origins of the stew here on Wikipedia. 

I do it my way, which results in a pretty tasty dish, even if I do say so myself.  I personally like it served with a piece of my No-Knead bread, but a hunk of cornbread or a biscuit is also lovely.  

Now for why I made this.  I had a half of a smoked chicken, which quite frankly I'm not too fond of, but I knew I also had some pulled pork in the freezer which needed to be eaten soon.

So I took the meat off the bones of the chicken, put it in a pot with the pork, added a 1 lb. or sixteen ounce bag of frozen mixed vegetables to the pot.  Grabbed some of my homemade chicken stock out of the freezer (1 cup if you're into measuring), added that on top, along with a can of diced tomatoes and okra, and about a cup of my favorite BBQ sauce- which is Bullseye, if you're curious.  Let it simmer for bit, then I tasted it, and added 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne for an added bite. 

The best part of this stew is you can, and should make it to your taste.   Use your favorite BBQ sauce, whichever kind of leftover smoked BBQ meat you have, and go for it.  I discovered as I was putting this batch together that the can of diced tomatoes I thought I had in the pantry was gone, but I had a can of diced okra and tomatoes, so it went in.  I had smoked chicken and pork, but you can make this with whatever kinds of smoked meats you have.    Traditionally... you use Corn and Lima beans, but I like mixed veggies so that's what I use.   

In fact I pulled some this out of the freezer the other day for dinner with a friend and we had a chunk of fresh baked bread with it.  And I still have some, just for me.