Last weekend, I made this recipe for the first day of Sukkot, the fall harvest festival, and we ate it inside our beautiful sukkah that my husband built last week. It warmed us from the inside out in the chilly 50 degree weather. And then it was gone, I mean really GONE, just a few hours later. Even my father, who said “I don’t like cholent,” ate a huge bowlful and said he changed his mind. Please make a note of that.

I’ve made cholent (crock pot stew traditionally served on holidays and Shabbat) a thousand times or more in my life, and no two versions have ever come out exactly the same. But there is a rhythm to this recipe, and once you get it, it belongs to you for the rest of your life. Like riding a bike.

The truth is that I have never used anywhere near this much Sriracha before, but we had two bottles in the refrigerator and one had just a couple inches at the bottom while the other one was full, so I went for broke and decided to use up the lesser one’s entire contents. And, oh yeah, was that a great idea. Too much is never enough.

For whatever reason, I made careful note of all the other things I put into the crockpot, too, and I’m glad I did because this one is a keeper. Especially cuz my dad liked it. 🙂

1/2 cup small dry white beans
3/4 cup dry lentils
3 medium potatoes (washed, scrubbed, and cut into 4-6 chunks)
1 med-large sweet potato (washed, scrubbed, and cut into 8-10 chunks)
1 large Vidalia onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup red quinoa
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup Sriracha sauce
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 Tbsp. olive oil (EVOO)

Fill the bottom of the crockpot with the potatoes and onion. Pour the white beans onto one side of the crockpot, and pour the lentils onto the other side, 180 degrees apart from one another. Pour the quinoa in the middle. Don’t worry about spread — the idea is just to keep them in their own general regions so that when it’s done you can scoop from different areas of the pot to get a good amount of whatever you choose.

Sprinkle the pot with garlic powder, and add the Sriracha and olive oil. Mix the tomato paste with some hot water, a little bit at a time, until it is pourable, and then pour it over the vegetables in the crockpot.

Fill the pot with hot water to 2-3 inches below the top of the pot, cover, and set to LOW. Cook 12-16 hours, bring to the table, and serve with pickles. You could also put some avocado cubes on top if you like. That’s how I made it for my dad.

And the rhythm of the recipe? It’s in the beans, the potatoes, the onions. Plus something, anything, made with tomatoes. And the slow, slow cooking. Once you’ve got that, you can take the rest of this recipe anywhere you like. I’ve made it with a piece of meat, and I’ve added whole raw eggs that come out hard boiled with the flavor of the cholent. I’ve used whole garlic cloves, and Roma tomatoes. Chicken thighs. Chickpeas. Black beans. Sweet potatoes. Golden beets. Kasha. Brown rice. Barley. Love, the best ingredient of all. Sometimes this recipe smells so good cooking through the night that it wakes me.