Spicy peanut stew

Duck, everyone. Here comes another recipe for peanut stew to make its way through the blogosphere. Like we need another, but what can I say? I just had to do it.

After a lovely recent dinner at the home of friends, I decided to exploit Elena's cooking skills and bring home her fabulous recipe for peanut stew. Of course she'd made it up, based on an African version of this dish, since she had lived in Africa. She couldn't remember exact quantities, but she was game to try. She painstakingly recalled all the ingredients, quantities and cooking times, and I carefully transcribed them, hoping to recreate her luscious stew at home and then post the recipe. So where did I put the recipe? It was nowhere to be found. My son convinced me to just make it anyway, since he was in the mood for peanut stew, so I made a list of what I could remember and we headed off to Trader Joe's to fill in the missing ingredients.

Elena used cauliflower, cabbage and swiss chard (I think) but I wanted broccoli and Jordan wanted sweet potatoes. I remembered that she'd used a large amount of garlic and ginger. There was peanut butter and crushed tomatoes, and I added kidney beans and hot peppers. I used the frozen "mystery peppers" from last summer's garden, and although I tasted them, I misjudged their heat and the stew was hellishly spicy (in a good way!). Although I was planning to add plain crushed tomatoes, I was attracted to a can of fire roasted chopped tomatoes and green chilies that was on special at TJ's, so that went into the stew. Jordan really wanted coconut milk, and although I wasn't in favor of it, I gave in and added some. I thought the stew tasted better before the coconut milk, and he thought it was better after. Actually, it was fantastic before and after, but I'm leaving it out. It's my recipe!

I cut my sweet potatoes a little too big and I had to simmer the stew nearly an hour before they were soft, which made the total cooking time, including prep, about two hours. I would serve this stew to company on a day when I had time to cook rather than as a busy weekday meal. It's easy to make and tastes wonderful.


Peanut stew (6-8 servings)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1–2 jalapeños (or 1 red or green sweet pepper if you don't want it spicy)
• 2 stalks broccoli (about 4 cups chopped into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 large carrot, cut into 1/4 inch rounds, or your favorite way (I like 1/4 "-thick rectangles)
  
• 5 large cloves garlic, minced fine (about 2 tablespoons minced)
• 1 tablespoon finely cut fresh ginger root
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can crushed (or diced) fire roasted tomatoes or tomatoes with green chilies
• crushed peanuts, cilantro or parsley for garnish (optional)
  

1. Sweat the onions. This means to place them in a thin layer of olive oil (about 1 tablespoon) in a pan (I used a heavy 4-1/2 quart cast iron dutch oven) and cook over very low heat with a tight fitting lid. Stir often and cook until they are somewhat translucent. I cooked mine about 15 minutes. (Probably because that's how long it took me to prepare the garlic and ginger!)
   
2. While the onions sweat, mince the garlic and ginger. Add them to the pan when the onions are ready, and continue to cook, covered, while you cut the pepper.
3. Add the pepper to the pot and cut the broccoli.
4. Add the broccoli and cook, covered, while you cut the sweet potato. (Don't make the sweet potato pieces too big!)
   
5. Add the sweet potato and 1 cup of water. Cover and cook while you cut the carrots. Then add the carrots and replace the cover.
6. Open and rinse the beans. Add the beans, tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin and sugar. Stir in the peanut butter. (It's a lot easier to stir in the peanut butter if it's at room temperature.) Add the second cup of water and bring to a boil.
7. Turn the heat to simmer, and add the tamari.
8. Simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. If the stew seems too thick, add a little veggie broth or water. I like mine thick.
   
9. Serve over white or brown basmati rice and garnish with crushed peanuts, cilantro or parsley, if desired.

The second night I served it over rice noodles, and we added some frozen okra. I'm not a big okra fan but Jordan says it's his favorite vegetable.

There are 8 million recipes for peanut stew in the Naked Blogo-City, and this has been one of them . . .

Tofu and veggies in ginger-garlic sauce

I love cookbooks, and even though I own a lot, there are always more I want. But, recently, something happened that made me ask this question: "What might make you suspect you own too many cookbooks?" We had been to the library a few weeks before, and brought home several cookbooks to try. We made a couple of dishes from them, and found one book in particular very appealing. Then, as I sat reading in the living room one evening, my husband walked into the room carrying our favorite of the borrowed cookbooks. "We own this," he said. "Huh?," I responded. "We own this cookbook. I just found it on the shelf." Yikes. I really should try to use our cookbooks more often, or at least get a grip on which ones are on the shelf.

So when I needed something to make for dinner did I turn to one of my many cookbooks for a recipe? Nope. I found an interesting mushroom recipe in my collection that I'd clipped from Better Homes and Gardens back in 2007, but had never made. (attributed to Catherine Wilkinson) I've adapted the seasonings and expanded it from a mushroom side-dish into a main dish that includes veggies and tofu.

My son and I cooked dinner together with me doing the cutting and him doing the cooking. I precut and measured all the ingredients into little dishes, just like the TV chefs, and cooking was fast and easy, just the way I like it. What a team! The dish was wonderful, and I think it's one I'll make often.



Tofu and vegetables in ginger and garlic sauce (serves four)

• 1 tablespoon vegan margarine (Earth Balance)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (tuong ot toi) or 1/4 to1/2 teaspoon Thai red curry paste* (optional)
  
• 12 ounces baby bella (cremini) mushrooms (or portabella or shiitake)
  
• 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce (I used low-sodium)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk (I used light)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice (I used 2)
• 2 cups broccoli, cut into narrow strips
• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 6 to 8 ounces tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• cooked brown rice (I used basmati)

1. Steam the broccoli and carrots briefly in a small amount of water in a covered pot until the broccoli turns bright green and is crisp-tender. Uncover and set aside.
2. Heat the margarine and oil in a large skillet. Add the tofu, green onions, cilantro, ginger and garlic. Cook and stir for 1 minute.
   
3. Stir in the mushrooms and soy sauce and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Stir in the coconut milk and chili-garlic sauce. Add the broccoli and carrots. Bring to boiling, turn down heat and simmer, uncovered, about 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice.
6. Serve over cooked rice.

*Thai red curry paste can be very hot so use discretion. If using this, you might want to start with 1/4 teaspoon, depending on how spicy you like your food.

Just want to mention that the weather has certainly taken a turn for the better here in southern Wisconsin. Over the weekend the thermometer soared into the 40s (: D), and combined with the sunshine, it felt like spring to us. But what do we know? We unbutton our coats when it hits 30! (Not me, of course. I admit that 30 feels pleasantly balmy, but I still require appropriate clothing. I keep my long underwear on until at least March.)

In addition to the great weather, I had another pleasant weekend experience. My friend Claire won two tickets to the operetta Candide, by being the first person to call in to a radio station, and she invited me along. (Don't you sometimes wonder who those people are that win the radio call-in contests?) We had dinner together and then attended the performance, which was wonderful and hilarious. What a great evening — and I stayed awake for the whole thing.

How I learned to make pizza

When I was a pre-teen/early teen, my late father owned an Italian restaurant. Other than pizza and shrimp salad, I have no memory of what was on the menu. Those were the only things I ever ate there and pizza was the main thing. I really loved the pizza. When I discovered that my father was making big vats of pizza dough in the restaurant basement, I was shocked. No one had ever told me that HE was making it. I couldn't believe it. My father was not a cooking - cleaning - help - around - the - house kind of guy. He was a man who prided himself on never having changed a diaper for any of his three children. He went to work and came home and we kids were mostly supposed to not bother him.

When I found out about the pizza dough I was beside myself. I couldn't stop pestering and begging him to make pizza at home. After a couple months of incessant nagging he finally agreed, and this was the start of pizza making at our house. He made the dough and it was my job to grate the cheese (in those days real cheese) and make the sauce. I was probably about 11 or 12 at the time but I still remember it perfectly. It was an uncooked sauce that doesn't sound good but made a delicious pizza. I put tomato paste into a bowl and thinned it with water until it would drop from a spoon. I added garlic salt and oregano and a little sugar until it tasted like pizza sauce. It had to be a little more seasoned than usual so it would be flavorful on the baked pie.

Of course, now I prefer to have some yummy leftover tomato sauce on hand when I make pizza but if I don't...well... I'm not above opening a can of tomato paste and quickly making a sauce. I use granulated garlic or fresh smashed and minced garlic, chili powder and oregano. Maybe some dried onion flakes will be added or some hot pepper flakes. But a jar of Enrico's Pizza Sauce or Muir Glen organic pizza sauce are also reasonable alternatives to homemade.

I still love pizza, and have posted a recipe before this one. It was made with a dough based on Peter Reinhart's mimimal-yeast, slow-rising recipes from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," a book I love, love, love, and highly recommend to serious and aspiring bread bakers. The breads and pizzas I bake based on the recipe I've worked out for my bread machine (forgive me Mr. R), are stellar. The pizza is fast, but the breads, while not requiring much hands-on time, take all day to rise before I bake them on my stone. The pizza is the thin and crispy crust type and incredibly good.
Here's another idea for a crust based on a fast and easy bread I've been experimenting with lately. It makes a softer, but delicious crust with little fuss - no bread machine needed. I used my variation of the recipe, but the original recipe and instructions are found here. To make pizza, you should let the dough rise once in the bowl, and then form the crust. I used a pizza pan for the crust because I thought the dough was too soft to get it easily onto the pizza stone, especially covered with all the toppings. Let the crust rise about a half-hour before adding the toppings. I used tomato sauce, Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet mozzarella, crimini mushrooms, broccoli, onions and sausage crumbles. I pre-heated the oven to 475 and baked the pizza for 3 minutes before turning the oven down to 350 and baking until done - about 20 minutes. Bake the pizza near the bottom of the oven for the best crust and check it for doneness before the whole baking time is up. The recipe makes two breads so I made one pizza and one bread.

Baby broccoli

I really miss Seattle. While it wasn't particularly warm, and it rained a lot, at least it was clearly spring. The cherry trees were in full bloom and daffodils and other beautiful flowers were everywhere. Here in Madison, there is still snow on the ground, although I did spy some snow drops (the flowering variety) in the back yard. I must be thinking of spring because when I grabbed my lunch from the refrigerator this morning, I thought I saw a package of asparagus in there. I have a wonderful recipe for asparagus cooked with balsamic vinegar that I make every year to celebrate the coming of spring. It seemed a bit premature to be eating asparagus, but I was willing.

By the time I got home, took the dog outside and did a bunch of chores, it was 7 p.m. I spent 15 minutes looking for my recipe before finally finding it. I went to get the asparagus and discovered it was actually a package of baby broccoli. Disappointed but unwilling to shift gears, I was ready to cook whatever with the asparagus recipe. There was also a package of small red, yellow and orange peppers so I cooked them too. Well, I'm not going to write the recipe here because it wasn't a particularly good way to prepare broccoli, and the recipe deserves asparagus. And I burned the cashews, which look kind of like grubs, don't you think? In my opinion the flavors didn't work well together and the vegetable wasn't tender enough - I think it needed to be steamed before being stir fried. The peppers tasted great, though. My son ate the leftovers the next day and thought they were good, but I'm holding out for asparagus.

Fried rice

No recipe tonight - just a photo of the fried rice I made for supper. It was just a simple stir fry with lots of baby broccoli, carrots, yellow and orange peppers, onion, mushrooms and leftover rice. I seasoned it with a spice mixture from Penzeys called Bangkok Blend, and tamari. Even when I don't think I have enough energy left to make dinner, something as simple as this still beats some over-seasoned convenience food. Yeah.