Easy curry: Butternut squash, cauliflower and kale with couscous

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dinner, EASY, squash, Stew

This curry turned out exceptionally well.

lentil stew

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dinner, legume, Stew

This is a great, hearty, warming lentil stew, and a nice alternative to our usual lentil dishes.

The flavors nicely compliment, the lentils subtle, rather than the focus.

-D

The Correct Chick Pea Stew

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chickpeas, S.E.M.I.C.O.G.E.N.T., Stew

Back over the summer when Dan made this Sour Chickpea Soup, there was a break down in communication as I had intended for him to make the Rustic Chickpea Puree instead.  Both recipes were from The Spiced Life and posted within days of each other, so that may have added to the confusion as well….

Since I was left unsatisfied from the sour chickpea soup, I ventured forth to make the Rustic stew.  And I am absolutely thrilled that I did.

The recipe comes courtesy of The Spiced Life.

Note:  I used canned chickpeas instead of dried to cut down on cook/prep time and vegetable stock rather than chicken.  I also had to transfer the soup to my food processor to blend.  It made a horrible mess and I have since invested in an immersion blender.  What a wonderful invention!!

Rustic Chickpea Puree with Pasilla Chile, Mint & Cider Vinegar
Inspired by Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen

3 cups dry chickpeas, picked through and rinsed
water
1 T lard or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped (in addition to onion below)
4 cloves garlic, minced
8 whole cloves of garlic, paper left on
1 large onion, thickly sliced
28 oz of Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes (I used the latter)
4 dried pasilla chile peppers, seeds and stems removed
1-2 cups chicken stock
extra virgin olive oil for drizzling over veggies and garnishing soup
3-4 T cider vinegar
1/2 t Mexican oregano
salt and pepper
2 T minced fresh mint, preferably spearmint
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
grated Parmesan (or queso anejo, which I did not have) for garnish
hot sauce for garnish

Start early in the day–or even the previous day–by bringing the chickpeas with the lard, chopped onion and the minced garlic to a boil in a large pot. Make sure that the water covers the chickpeas by at least 2 inches. After it boils vigorously for about 5 minutes, reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer the chickpeas until tender. Salt to taste and simmer another 10 minutes. At this point you could refrigerate the beans until the next day.

Preheat the oven to 475 F. Toss the thickly sliced onions and the papered garlic cloves with some olive oil and generously salt and pepper them. Spread them out on a cookie sheet and roast them, tossing occasionally, until charred at the edges. Remove the tray and immediately remove the garlic to a cutting board to cool. Dump the roasted onions into the chickpeas.

Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the cloves and mince it. Add it to the chickpeas as well as the fire roasted tomatoes and Mexican oregano. Bring to a simmer and partially puree with an immersion blender (if you prefer, partially puree it in stages in a blender). Because these are chickpeas, and not a creamier bean, the texture will be quite rustic and have a lot of chew to it, rather than creaminess. Add the pasilla chile peppers and let simmer for 15 minutes. Add the mint and cilantro and 1 tablespoon fo the cider vinegar. Taste for salt and more cider vinegar–if you like it spicier, add less cider vinegar and instead more hot sauce, such as Tapatio. Serve garnished with grated queso anejo or Parmesan and a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil.

Saturday Night Theme: West African Fare

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dinner, Popovers, Stew, West African

A few weeks ago, when I made the apple yogurt coffee cake, I decided the recipe was so good, I needed to return to the website, Kitchen.M., and window shop some more.

That’s when I found the recipe for her West African Peanut Stew, and I knew it was immediately part of our recipes-to-try-list.  The list is very large……and I am not sure we will ever get to the end of it (or the middle) because we keep adding to it at an alarmingly quick pace.  As a matter of fact, Dan even mentioned banning himself from looking at food sites until we could make a dent in our list.  I am not sure that has worked, yet.

So, Saturday morning, I set out to grocery shop, in the pouring rain!  I came home and gathered my ingredients.

You will notice when reading her recipe, she calls for apple juice.  Just to be creative and kinda make this my own, I substituted pomegranate juice, and it was AMAZING!

The longest part of the recipe was the prep work.  If you dice up the sweet potatoes small enough, they will cook quickly and you can have dinner on the table in 45 minutes, start to finish.

Being that it rained ALL day, the stew was a perfect, warm and delightful end to a soggy day.

Because there were so many vegetables in the stew and it was very hearty, we didn’t need much to accompany it.  However, I decided that popovers would go well with it.

In my continued attempt at ‘Going Healthy’, I totally modified my popover recipe and wound up with more of a muffin.  They were very tasty and worked great at sopping up the liquid at the bottom of the bowl.

Here is what I did:

1 C. white whole wheat flour

1 C. soy milk

1. C egg beaters

Pinch of sea salt

Pre-heat oven to 400, mix all ingredients together, liberally spray a muffin pan and fill 3/4 full.  Place in oven for 30 minutes and DON”T OPEN THE DOOR till they are done.