Recipe: Spicy veg & tomato stew

This is a recipe from my partner who does all the cooking.  I am not permitted in the kitchen as I’m pretty awful when it comes to making… anything! 🙂

This is a very simple, vegetarian recipe, great for using up any excess veggies you have.

Ingredients

– Any leftover/excess veg

– Garden peas and sweetcorn (one tin each if you don’t have any fresh)

– 2 tins of (any kind of) beans (eg kidney beans, black beans, mixed beans, again if you don’t have any fresh)

– 1 to 1.5 litres tomato passata/puree

– Cayenne pepper, hot chili powder, garlic, nutmeg, coriander

Tools

– Chopping board & knife

– Pan

– Sieve

– Mixing Spoon

Method

Simply chop up the veg so the pieces are around an inch or so thick.

Fling it all in a big pan

Sieve and rinse the tinned peas beans and sweet corn then add them.

Mix it all together while adding the passata.

Then add half of your herbs and stir well

Put the stove on high heat until boiling, then lower heat and simmer for a few hours, adding the rest of the herbs halfway through the cooking time.

And that’s it, depending on how much veg you have you should be able to fill a large saucepan or cooking pot to the brim, and this will make 6 – 8 generous helpings. If there aren’t that many people eating it freezes very well too.

Extra Info/Tips

Certain fresh veg works better than others:

– Cabbage is nice but can have an overpowering smell, so use sparingly if possible.

– Leafy vegetables like lettuce don’t tend to work overly well in stews. However, one thing that’s delicious is spinach or kale. But instead of cooking it, keep it raw, then fire a load into a bowl just before eating and ladle the hot stew over it.

– Chunks of meat can be added as well, beef would probably work well. However, if you’re a vegetarian or vegan (like us) then mushrooms are great. Also, tofu cut up into cubes absorbs the flavour of the tomatoes and spices really well.

– As far as the herbs go, we like our food spicy so for a large pan the following amounts work well to give it a nice zing:

• 2 tablespoons garlic powder (or 5-6 cloves if you have any fresh)
• 1 tablespoon each of coriander, nutmeg, chili powder, and cayenne pepper.

You could add/substitute some paprika depending on your tastes. If you’re not a fan of spicy food, leave out the cayenne pepper and substitute the hot chili powder for mild, or just leave out as well.

The coriander and nutmeg make it lovely and aromatic, so if you’d rather go this way, some fennel seed and cardamom pods will work well.

Make your own Passata

If you have around 1.5kg fresh tomatoes you can make your own passata. Make a cross cut in the bottom of each one, put them in a pan, cover with boiling water and leave for about 5 minutes.

Then peel and de-seed, keeping the skins and seeds for your wormery/compost heap, and blend the flesh until smooth.

= ^.^ =

Bright Blessing

BK