Nik's Peanut Stew

Don't ask me why, but I'm always hesitant to share recipes that use specialty ingredients. I guess I want you guys all to have fair access to the food I make, but I think my egalitarian attitude has prevented far too many recipes from going on this blog.

Well, the buck stops here!

I was poking around on Pinterest and found this recipe for West African peanut stew. I was searching on behalf of La Petite Diva (my youngest daughter) because she has been vegetarian for about a year now and so I figure she's committed enough for me to start thinking outside the box (she's my culinarily adventurous child).

So when I went to make it I thought I had all the ingredients but I didn't. And then in thinking about modifications, the inevitable happened. I started thinking "I wonder if this would be good if I added..." Yeah...I started playing with my food!

The result is REALLY yummy. The kid liked it. I liked it. Even though it's got peanut butter, that's not the dominant flavor here. It is noteworthy that this dish can be easily made with chicken (and if you've ever had Thai-style chicken skewers you can relate to the flavor of peanuts and chicken together) to bump up the protein. Just use my meat marinating technique to ensure tender chicken, grill it up and then add it into the recipe where I indicate below!

Nik's Peanut Stew
(Makes about 1 post-op + 3-5 "non-op" servings)

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 onion diced (I used a regular yellow onion)
• 3 tomatoes diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can of diced carrots, drained
• 1 tsp. of ground ginger
• 1 tsp. garam masala
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. tumeric
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• 2 c. water.
• 1 c. creamy peanut butter (you can use chunky if you like the texture)
• 4 oz. tomato paste
• 1/4 c. hot sauce (I agree with the source recipe...Sriracha is best!)
• 2 cans of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
• 1 bag (about 3 c.) baby spinach

Directions:

Set a soup pot over medium heat and allow it to get hot. Add olive oil, onions tomatoes and garlic. Sautee 2-3 minutes.

Add peas and carrots along, spices and water, stir, and drop your heat down to low. Cover the pot and allow the mixture to come to a boil.

In a mixing bowl, combine peanut butter with tomato paste (I do this with a whisk but a regular mixing spoon works too) until thoroughly combined. Ladle some of the veggie mixture into the bowl and use it to thin out the mixture before adding it all back into the pot.

Stir well then add the hot sauce. (My advice is to add it 2 tablespoons at a time until you reach a flavor you like. I like spicy food so I just went for it!)

Finally add the garbanzo beans and baby spinach and stir. (NOTE: If you are using cooked chicken meat, add it at this point!) Cover the pot and allow it to simmer on medium-low for 25-30 minutes (just to let the flavors love on one another).

I served La Petite Diva hers over brown rice and mine over cauliflower rice. I like this! It's tart, creamy and savory all at the same time. I love "eating outside the box!"

Here are some outtake pictures:

Nik's Kitchen Sink Cabbage Stew

So…I had this head of cabbage. And it was about to go bad. And I could have made my regular “Comforting Cabbage & Sausage Stew.” But alas I didn't have all the ingredients. But you know what we say around these parts: "Play with your food!"

I didn’t change it up much but my goal was three-fold: 

• Get tomatoes in there in a way that La Grande Diva would not veto (per her eating rules tomatoes are only allowed in cases of salsa and tomato soup, which is ONLY to be eaten with grilled cheese sandwiches).
• Use up any random veggies I had in the fridge
• Make it spicy! (True fact: if you add the adjective "spicy" to any dish my children will at least try it)

So I made this nifty little variation. Mine has a kick to it. Yours doesn’t. I’ll give my recipe but you can really sub most of what’s in here. Except, of course, for the cabbage! I call it "kitchen sink" cabbage stew because you can put everything but the kitchen sink in it and it'd still be good!

Nik’s “Kitchen Sink” Cabbage Stew

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 pkg. turkey smoked sausage, sliced into rounds of desired thickness
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 head of cabbage, roughly chopped
• 1 small can low-sodium and/or low-sugar tomato soup
• 2 c. water
• ½ bag of baby spinach, rinsed
• ½ tsp. garlic salt
• ½ tsp. Herbs de Provence
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper (omit if you don’t want it to be spicy!)
• 10 oz. cannellini beans, drained and rinsed.
• Optional (but I used): ½ can of sweet corn 

Directions:

Spray a pot with non-stick cooking spray and let it get hot over a high flame (like seriously…let it sit there a good 2-3 minutes). Once hot, drop the heat to medium.

Add onions to the pot and sautee until they are slightly softened (about 2 minutes). Add sausage and brown it. Finally, add garlic to the mixture and stirl.

Add cabbage, followed by soup and water. Allow the cabbage to cook down a bit before adding spinach, corn (if using) and desired spices.

Allow all this to cook over medium heat about 20 minutes, stirring often.

Add beans and stir through. Drop the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until cabbage is tender.

The wonderful thing about this soup is that throwing the beans in there and letting them cook a while thickens the broth of the soup. So I guess technically it’s a “stoop” (this is the ONLY Rachel Ray term I’ve ever fully embraced).

The girls LOVED it. It was sweet and salty and savory all at the same time. To me it wasn’t overly spicy but your mileage may vary.

My eldest daughter (the picky one) described it like this: “It’s sort of like pork and beans except there’s vegetables instead of pork.”

Well…there ya go.

And just for fun. I usually take a gamillion pics of dishes at different angles and choose one final "money shot" (bad pun, I know!) for the blog picture. I thought I'd show you my outtakes for this dish. There weren't that many!

 I liked this picture but it didn't strike me as special in any way.

 Not that anybody notices this stuff but me  (cuz you all have lives!) but lately my final pics have been of two varieties: the direct overhead shot (as in the picture way up top) or with part of the plate or bowl off camera with some sort of background or side element. In this instance I thought the food was a bit dark in this pic (I was at my desk at work!) and the spoon and napkin just wasn't that interesting on top of my putty colored desk. 

I am by no means a pro food photographer but I'm working on learning to take better pictures! Lord knows if I ever do a food cookbook (having just finished the shake book that might be a minute!) I am here to tell you it'd need to be DIY all the way, so better to learn the skill of taking the pictures now, eh?