Chicken and Sausage Stew — The Healing Broth Mom Brought When Caleb Arrived

Ryan is home. Caleb is here. Everything happened and I'm writing this three days later because for seventy-two hours I was incapable of anything except holding a baby and crying. Ryan arrived Thursday at 11 PM on a red-eye from California. I was at the airport — Mom drove because I am thirty-eight weeks pregnant and should not be operating heavy machinery. He came through the gate in his cammies with a duffel bag and his eyes found me across the terminal and he ran. MARINES DON'T RUN IN AIRPORTS. This Marine ran. He dropped the bag and held me and the belly was between us — this enormous, baby-filled belly — and he put his hands on it and Caleb kicked and Ryan fell to his knees. Right there. In the Jacksonville airport. A Marine, on his knees, hands on his wife's belly, crying. Mom stood behind us and did not cry (she says). She definitely cried (I saw). We went home. Ryan walked into the apartment he'd left five months ago and it was different — the nursery, the yellow walls, the crib, the rocking chair. He stood in the doorway of the nursery and said, 'You did all this.' 'Jen helped. Mom helped.' 'YOU did this, Rachel.' I let him have it. He needed to see what I'd built. Caleb James Abernathy was born Saturday, November 24th, 2018, at 3:47 AM, at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces, with his father's chin and his mother's lungs. The labor was fourteen hours. The last three were hell. Ryan held my hand. Mom stood by the door because she wanted to be there but not in the way, and she alternated between coaching me ('breathe, Rachel, BREATHE') and coaching Ryan ('hold her hand, don't let go, don't you DARE let go'). The midwife was calm and competent and at 3:47 AM she said 'one more push' and I pushed and the room filled with the sound of a baby crying. Ryan held him first. The midwife placed Caleb in Ryan's arms and Ryan held him and looked at me and his face — his face was destroyed. Demolished. Every wall the Marine Corps built, every stoicism, every 'I'm fine' — gone. He was just a man holding his son and crying. He held Caleb for three hours before falling asleep in the hospital chair. Just like the bio says. Just like the story goes. Mom came to the hospital with food. Of course she did. She brought chicken broth — the healing broth, the medicine broth — and she fed it to me from a mug while I held Caleb and she looked at her grandson and said, 'He's perfect, Rachel. He's absolutely perfect.' Caleb. My son. Our son. He's here. He's real. He has ten fingers and ten toes and a cry that could wake the dead and a face that I will never stop looking at. Dinner tonight (our first dinner as a family of three): leftovers from Mom's freezer stash. Heated up. Eaten at the table. At 1800. Some things don't change. A baby doesn't change dinner at 1800. Nothing changes dinner at 1800. Welcome home, Caleb. Welcome to the family. Welcome to the kitchen.

My mom has a language, and it is food — specifically, the kind of food that asks nothing of you except that you eat it. When she walked into that hospital room at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune and pressed a mug of warm chicken broth into my hands, I understood everything she couldn’t say out loud. This Chicken and Sausage Stew is the full expression of that mug: the same warmth, the same intention, built out into something you can sit down to as a family when the world has just cracked open and put itself back together. It’s what we’ll make when Caleb is old enough to ask what we ate the week he was born.

Chicken and Sausage Stew

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 12 oz smoked andouille or kielbasa sausage, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp cornstarch whisked with 2 tbsp cold water (optional, for thickening)
• Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

1. Brown the meats. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add sausage rounds and cook 3—4 minutes until lightly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add chicken pieces to the same pot and cook 4—5 minutes, turning once, until golden on the outside. Remove and set aside with the sausage.
2. Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrots, and celery to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, 4—5 minutes until the onion is translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.
3. Combine and season. Return the chicken and sausage to the pot. Add chicken broth, diced tomatoes with their juices, potatoes, thyme, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Stir well to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
4. Simmer low and slow. Bring the stew to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 25—30 minutes, until potatoes are fork-tender and chicken is cooked through with no pink remaining.
5. Thicken if desired. For a heartier consistency, stir the cornstarch slurry into the simmering stew. Cook uncovered 3—5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the broth thickens slightly. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
6. Serve. Ladle into deep bowls and finish with a scattering of fresh parsley. Serve with crusty bread or over white rice. Leftovers keep refrigerated up to 4 days and freeze well for up to 3 months.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 335 | Protein: 30g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 19g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 870mg