Six years ago, my friend Whitney dragged me to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose. For months weeks after, I would wake in the middle of the night petrified to open my eyes and look at the time in case it was 3 o’clock, which is when the devil supposedly is most likely to possess you.

Every once in a while I still wake up terrified. I wish I was kidding…

Also, I have really intense nightmares of people being attacked after I watch  3 or more episodes of Law and Order: SVU, which happens to be one of my favorite shows. And which is ALWAYS having a marathon on TV. How can I not watch more than three episodes??

So, when my roommates told me that they were all leaving for the holidays after their fall semesters ended and I’d have three weeks on my own, I was excited for about 5 seconds and then I realized, Shit! Who is going to be around to read my demonic statements written in blood on the wall if I get possessed? Or, what if I’m attacked? Whose going to call the Boston equivalent of SVU and make sure I have a hot middle-aged, balding detective with severe anger problems  to help me out (lets not even talk about my crush on Stabler…)??

I was in a serious dilemma here! Thankfully, Melinda (of the Bread Dilemma and the Beet Cupcakes) was apartment searching and needed a futon to crash on. Score!

Melinda!

And THEN, Becca, my old roomie who moved to Cali, was visiting and crashed with us. This was as a perfect scenario: The priests that fly solo in the movies always fail! Two people would be way more successful if an exorcism was needed. A girl needs to plan ahead!

Becca!

Plus, we all like cooking so delicious food was inevitable!  We all chipped in and helped with this Irish Stew:

Vegan Irish Stew

Based on Vegetarian Irish Stew on Food.com

Olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 medium onions
1/4 cup flour
4 cups vegetable stock
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 cup carrots
1 turnip, chopped
1 potato, chopped
1 cup chopped kale
1/2 cup lentils(we forgot to put these in and it resulted in a brothier stew, but it was still delicious!)
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
pepper
1 cup Seitan, cut into chunks

In a large part, sauté garlic and onions in the olive oil until they are soft.  Add the flour and stir until the garlic and onions are completely coated.

Add the remaining ingredients, mix well and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer on low for about 30 minutes, or until the veggies are done

Cooking with Melinda and Becca was hilarious because neither of them believes in really following a recipe or measuring things. For instance, they went to the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed and instead of coming back with celery, they decided kale was a perfectly decent substitute. I had to keep track of all their changes on the white board in the kitchen so I could remember the recipe when it was time to post it!

Thankfully, the meal turned out awesome, even though we changed half the ingredients and forgot the lentils! AND I didn’t need them to rid any demonic spirits from my life. Definitely a win, win!