african peanut stew

African Peanut Stew over brown rice

So.. winter has finally hit Upstate NY, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I am totally under the weather and feeling junky, and needed some soul food to warm me up and make me feel better.

This is some stew I made, full of veggies and some good spice to clear out my head and fill me with goodness. Very hearty and satisfying. I love the combination of the peanut butter, chipotle pepper and root veggies. I made a huge pot full to feed us for a couple meals, cause mostly I want to be hiding under a blanket, watching Felicity. Hopefully this healthy food will heal me.

This isn't really the type of dish/meal/recipe I'd worry about making sure I have the exact veggies, or amounts of each veggies suggested, I just use what I have in the fridge that needs to be used up and seems like it would work. Same with type of hot pepper, this time I used a chipotle in adobo. (Last time I opened up one of those lil cans, I froze the extra in a tray, so now I have lil chipotle icecubes. most of the time you only really want one, not all six or so that come in a can, right?)  If I didn't have any of those, I might have just used pepper flakes, but I was pleased with the smokiness the chipotle added to the stew. Maybe if I didn't have chipotle, I'd use some liquid smoke.


African Peanut Stew

ingredients:

1/4 onion- diced
1 tsp cumin seeds-crushed
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 chipotle pepper in adobo- chopped 
1 can tomatoes (i used canned whole tomatoes, and roughly crushed them/squeezed)
1 potato- diced
2 sweet potatoes- diced
2 acorn squash- (i had some i already roasted, so i just scooped out the flesh. peeled, raw squash would be great too)
2 carrots- chopped
1 clove garlic- pressed
1-1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1/4-1/3 cup natural peanut butter
dash vinegar (i used ume plum vinegar-cause it's way yummy)
pinch Indian chili powder
1 package frozen spinach

cooked brown rice

directions:

-start cooking onion, cumin, coriander and turmeric in a lil water, when starts to get fragrant (1-2 min), add in the chipotle pepper, cook for a min then add tomatoes, and their juice, all the root veggies, the chickpeas, and the garlic. 
-add water to the pot until it's a soupy consistency/almost covers the veggies. turn up heat and bring  to a simmer. turn down heat to a low simmer, cover pot and cook until it's thickened up a bit and the veggies are starting to get tender (20-25 min).
-add in the peanut butter, and stir it around until incorporated, this can be a lil tough if the peanut butter is thick, if you cover the pot for a min, it'll start to break up and you can incorporate into the stew. taste and season with a dash of vinegar and hot Indian chili powder, you might even want more peanut butter. 
-once it tastes yummy, add in frozen spinach, stir and cook until the spinach is thawed and all mixed throughout the stew.
-eat over rice (it would also be really good with some bread)




 

sweet potato-chickpea curry with mellow yellow rice

Have I ever told you how much I love Indian food? Well I do, but I have NO CLUE how to cook it authentically, my lack of knowledge doesn't stop me from trying! I think my attempts are yummy :)

Last night, I satisfied the Indian craving.. I made a curry with a sweet potato, chickpeas, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder and coconut milk. (I also added in other spices... like cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper). I basically started with the aromatic veggies, added in the spices and coconut milk, chopped sweet potato and chickpeas.. then let it come together on the stovetop for 45 minutes.

I also made a yummy mixed yellow rice. I had like 3/4 cup of brown rice and 2/3 cup of basmati rice left in the cabinet, so not really enough for a full dinner, I decided to combine them into a sort of pilaf. During my lazy sunday afternoon, I had cooked the rices separately in the rice cooker, then let cool. When it was almost time for dinner, I cooked up a lil onion in some earth balance, added a teaspoon of turmeric, then fried the rice in. I used my regular chinese fried rice technique, and it worked great! I think saffron would have been an awesome flavor, but I'm too poor and the turmeric did the mellow yellow job. I also steamed some kale for a nutritious side of greens.

I wish I could have posted a "recipe" for this... but whenever I make a curry I never measure, and just keep adding random spices until I'm happy with the flavor.

parsnip and sweet potato au gratin!

So a couple weeks ago, I found a recipe online for a Gratin dish--> here. So I went to the farmer's market, and bought a whole load of parsnips, I got home all excited to make the Parsnip Gratin, looked online for the recipe, when I realized it was RUTABAGA gratin! I got all grumpy and was like "what the heck am I gonna do with all these parsnips???" The hubby told me to calm down, and I reluctantly decided to make the dish anyways.

I had lots of second thoughts as I was preparing the sauce and the parsnips, I believe I even canceled dinner once or twice. When it started baking, it started filling up the house with a rich cheesey smell... Then we ate it, it had great texture, and the cashew cream sauce was fantastic as a "gratin." We did agree that parsnips are a pretty strong flavor, and this gratin would be improved upon by adding other veggies. So I decided to improve upon the gratin last night. Here's what I did and, by the way, it came out great!

ingredients:

1 3/4 c. boiling water
1 c. raw cashews
1/2 c. tahini
2 T chickpea (light) miso
1 big parsnip
1 big sweet potato
1/2 small red onion
salt
pepper
thyme
nutmeg

-cover cashews with boiling water, let sit for 20-30 minutes.
-using immersion blender, blend cashews (with water), tahini and the miso. this should be super creamy and smooth
-prepare veggies! i used the food processor to make thin discs of the parsnip and sweet potato. i also chopped up the onion into lil pieces
-coat baking dish with oil.
-then layer your gratin. i started with one layer of parsnips, then a lil salt, pepper, thyme. then a layer of sweet potato and a lil onion, then more salt, pepper, thyme. then added about 1/3 the cashew cream sauce. then more veggies, spices, etc... until you've used up all the veggies, and topped with the last of the sauce
-cover the dish, and bake at 400 for 50 min. use a knife to check for tenderness. if the dish is almost done, top with garlic breadcrumbs and bake for 10 more min until golden.

Vegan MOFO day 12 - Down-home cookin', y'all!

My wife Peggy is something else, if you didn't already know. She makes a one-time vegan nay-sayer say "DAY-UM! THAT WAS SCRUMPTIOUS!" That's right, I say scrumptious. Tonight's dish: down-home cookin' a la Peggy. BBQ "chicken", cole slaw, and baked sweet potatoes.

-"Chicken": Gardein 7-grain nuggets tossed in bbq sauce and baked at 400F for 17 minutes

-Sweet potatoes: baked for about an hour, also at 400F (Convenient, no?) and topped with a little EB and cinnamon

-Cole slaw: food processor-sliced cabbage with red onion, then some Vegenaise, apple-cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit o' sugar.

I usually blog right after eating, to get the mood just right. And the mood is: stuffed and happy. Happy Friday!

vegan mac w/ sweet potatoes

Our honeymoon in Mexico was wonderful, we stayed at a fancy resort and ate tons and tons of guacamole :) The food we missed most from home was vegan mac.
So I made it right away when we got home..

Here's the recipe for my standard "cheese" sauce for vegan mac :) This amount of sauce is good for 16 oz box of pasta (shells, noodles, whatever...) I usually add some sort of veggie, this time I added sweet potato cubes

(note: this recipe was inspired by vegweb.com)

ingredients:
1 1/2 c. nutritional yeast
3/4 c. canola oil or earth balance
1 1/2 c. soy milk
1/3 c. Bragg's Liquid Amminos
1/4 block extra firm tofu
1 T paprika
1 T onion powder
1 T garlic powder
1 squirt dijon mustard
lots of fresh ground black pepper

-combine all ingredients together and blend, i like to use the immersion blender and blend until its a thick-creamy cheesey sauce

-stir in with cooked macaroni (1lb), and veggie of choice, top with bread crumbs, bake for 20-30 mins until bubbly and a little browned