Oyster Stew with Rosemary

I mentioned that Jo decided to eat my stale year old gingerbread house. I was going to put it out for the squirrels as I couldn’t face mixing icing just to fix the fence and glue the saved pieces on the house. My brother suggested I just use a glue gun. I mean, we are not going to eat it. So today I glued it all back together and in the process discovered what he ate. It is pictured above. The right and the left sides are equal. Can you guess. Text or email me if you discover what was consumed. I changed the menu today as Jim found oysters again at Costco. I used a different recipe from Soup of the Day. It is so much more filling, Jim had to eat most of it. Also in the WW weekly there was a Chicken on salad. I had leftover chicken from NYE and wanted to get the bones etc in the freezer for my next batch of broth. I changed it up a bit. They wanted pecans, I used sunflower seeds. They wanted blue cheese, I used feta. I used Spring Mix salad and our favorite salad dressing. I could tell we would hate the one they suggested as it was too much vinegar. Jim had 1/2 a breast left and ate that in addition to the 1/2# of chicken pieces I put in the salad. We really liked the salad. This oyster stew feeds 8-10 I divided it by 3 as I had 1 pt of oysters and believe me it was more than enough for 2.

Ingredients

• 1 T unsalted butter
• 1 T canola oil
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 1/4 C white wine
• 6 C chicken broth
• Salt and ground white pepper
• 1 C cream
• 3 pints shucked oysters with their liquor
• 1 T minced rosemary, plus more for garnish

Instructions

1. In a large, heavy pot, melt the butter with the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and salute until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes.
2. Add the broth and season with salt and pepper to taste. Reduce the heat to low, cover , and simmer for 5 minutes. (I used my immersion blender to further grind the vegetables as I did not want them to be pieces in the broth.)
3. Stir the cream into the broth mixture and simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes. (Do not boil or the cream will curdle.)
4. Add the oysters and their liquor and simmer, uncovered, until the oysters have plumped up and their edges are curled, about 3 minutes.
5. Stir in the 1 T rosemary.
6. Season with salt and pepper and serve, garnished with the remaining rosemary.