Jessica's sweet potato chickpea peanut stew - an easy winter meal

This recipe (from my friend Jessica) comes together so fast, is made in one pot (or crock pot), requires little chopping, and brings together delicious flavors. A real winner I keep making over and over since she first shared it with me. If you have some ginger, garlic, and a sweet potato on hand, you can probably make this with stuff you have in your pantry.

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or about 2 cups from frozen)
• 1 sweet potato, cubed (I used 2)
• 1 1/2 t. curry powder
• 1/2-3/4 t. garam masala (depending on how spicy you like it)
• 1 t. cumin
• 1 T. minced ginger
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 14 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes, in juice
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 2 c. vegetable stock (or 1 if using crock pot)
• 2 T. natural peanut butter
• 1/2 c. red lentils, drained and rinsed (can substitute quinoa, if desired)

Combine everything in a soup pot, bring to a boil, let boil for about 15-20 minutes, then put on low and simmer for about 1 hr. It's finished when the potatoes are nice and tender (and falling apart). If you have a crock pot, turn it on high for an hour, and then let it cook on low for 2-3 hours (or low 4 hours).

summer vegetable pie with cornbread topping

I'm back in Ann Arbor just for a week, working during the new student orientation and getting some of my work in order. While I'm here I'm staying with two good friends of mine who are also great cooking companions (I've mentioned them a few times...). And they have a great summer CSA share, which is a plus. :) We got home from the airport and the fridge was stocked with veggies waiting to be transformed. We made this vegetable pie with lots of summer vegetables they had on hand. It would work with many other combinations though. Just be careful with the spice - if you add in hot peppers don't add in much other spiciness.

filling:
1 T olive oil
1 pepper (or poblano chile)
1 hot pepper (like jalapeno, if not using poblano)
1/2 red onion (or shallot)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 med yellow summer squash (or zucchini)
1 small eggplant
2 fresh tomatoes, cubed (or can diced)
1 tsp chili powder (if not using hot pepper)

other ideas: 1 ear corn, kernels cut from cob, fresh cilantro

cornbread topping*: 

1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 T sugar (or 2 T honey)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 T unsalted butter
*may want to double, especially if using 10-inch skillet

1. Preheat oven to 450. In an ovenproof skillet (8 or 10 inch), saute the onion and peppers, then add garlic and cook until soft. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook until they cook down  and get soft. I covered them for a while and checked them occasionally while prepping the cornbread. Salt and pepper to taste, watch the spice level.

2. Make the cornbread. Mix the wet and dry separately, (not butter yet), then add wet to the dry, and stir in melted butter last.

3. Pour the cornbread mixture over the top of the vegetables and put in the oven 12-15 minutes. The cornbread will brown slightly.

inspired by a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, Cooking for Two

spicy lentil and sweet potato stew with chipotles

Here's another one from the New York Times recipes for health... a spicy lentil stew with sweet potatoes. I got sweet potatoes of the white variety...by accident. They look the same as the orange ones from the outside (or very similar). But I started to peel it and it was white inside. Diane Morgan explains in Roots, there are two main kinds of sweet potatoes, the "soft," orange variety that "cooks up soft and moist," and the "firm" variety with "creamy white or yellow flesh that remains mealy and relatively firm." And let's clear up for once and for all...

What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?
Diane Morgan: "The firm variety was already being grown in the United States when the soft-fleshed type was introduced. To distinguish them, the latter were called yams because they resembled the unrelated African yam of the genus Dioscorea, and the term stuck."
Sweet potatoes: many varieties, including garnet, jewel (soft, moist-fleshed), but also Jersey, white Triumph, Kotobuki, Okinawa (firm, mealy).  People call the orange ones yams, but they are not yams. 
Yams: at least as old as the Jurassic era...they are most often an "oblong tuber with a rough, sometimes barklike skin and a starchy flesh that is hard and brittle when raw but quite tender, even creamy, when cooked." (Diane Morgan) Some varieties can weigh as much as 100 pounds!

Sweet potatoes were brought to Spain by Christopher Columbus - nearly a half century before the potato. Portuguese traders brought them to India and China.

fragrant lamb tagine with prunes and almonds

This recipe comes slightly ill-timed...as it's a great hearty, spiced winter stew, and today is the first day in Ann Arbor that truly, truly feels like spring. (Please, be here to stay!) Anyways, it's so fragrant I can't wait to eat it anyways. It's a recipe from David Tanis's Heart of the Artichoke. Tanis describes visiting Morocco and tasting this dish, "on top of the world" in the sand dunes of the Sahara. It's good, but I found that it had a bit too much sweetness. I would maybe reduce the golden raisins and prunes to 1 cup total when making it again, and adding some lemon juice and cilantro.

hearty soups IV: porotos granados, Chilean bean and corn stew

 This soup is adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cookbook Veg: River Cottage Everyday. Again, another great British chef I had not heard of...I saw this book at Synne's and fell in love with the images and simple recipe ideas. I just had to have it, although it doesn't come out in the US edition until May 2013. So we're using grams and liters, and "tinned" beans instead of canned. :) If you have a kitchen scale, metric is easier anyways than measuring cups, and for things like soups the measurements don't need to be exact anyways.

This is a take on the traditional Chilean stew porotos granados, a combination of old-world ingredients that (according to the internet) pre-dates the Spanish, from the Mapuche Indians. I guess it is traditionally made with cranberry beans. See here for how beautiful they are, by "Hungry Sofia." I am dealing with winter and the lack of fresh most things, so I used canned cannellini beans.  Other recipes call for the addition of bell pepper and basil instead of cilantro. But the common ingredients are sqaush/pumpkin, beans, sweet paprika, corn. I followed the lead of a recommendation on Saveur to add a swirl of a garlicy-herb paste into the soup. I found it a bit bland without the addition of lots of salt, pepper and herbs at the end. Then it was nice and fresh tasting - so season well.

minestrone with kale, white beans, tomatoes

 This recipe came to my inbox from the New York Times Recipes for Health, just when we had fresh kale to use. Pretty much everything else is in the pantry. We had our beautiful purple potatoes and purple kale from the CSA. As I was cooking, Jessica was heating up some amazing smelling smoked bacon next to me, so I threw in some of that, too, and garnished with crispy pieces. It would be vegetarian and vegan without the bacon and the parmesan rind. Yum yum.

Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds served with couscous

My weekly dinner with Katie and Peter ended up being an Ole reunion this week, with another St. Olaf grad, Nicole, joining us. She brought a great spinach salad, Katie and Peter supplied the wine and kitchen, and adorable puppy. We made a chicken tagine with apricots and almonds...mmm...The warm smell of cinnamon is perfect for winter weather!

just a friendly little winter soup swap: black bean and carrot-ginger

This weekend I participated in a little soup-swapping with some friends (thanks so much to Rachel for organizing!). We each made 8 servings of a soup, and then gave 2 servings to each of three friends. So we ended up with 4 different soups - lots of meals! Mine is the ugly one on the top left... a "green soup" gone slightly purple with the addition of purple kale. Going clockwise: Sara did a spicy Carrot-Ginger with coconut, Rachel made a black bean soup, and Jessica a cabbage-borscht.

Keep reading for the recipes for Carrot-Ginger and Black-Bean:

Mexican Chicken and Potato Stew served with Green Rice

 Tonight I was cooking as my friend Katie's sous chef in her amazing kitchen. Peter was pouring the wine. Raffa was just being super cute. :) My friends are all better cooks than I am, truly, and I love learning new ingredients and flavors I had never known from them. Tonight I discovered the flavors of chipotles in adobo sauce.  There are some meals that photos can just do no justice. Make this. If you're vegetarian, it would be good without the chicken. The flavors are just so unique, and so warming. The pineapple is a wonderful surprise.

chicken curry with cashews

I discovered this recipe through the "best of epicurious." In my mind, this is the best thing about the internet: you can see that a recipe has 660 reviews and 94% would make it again. That's always a good sign. It's a great meal to warm you up on a cold winter night. Also the closest I've ever come to making melt-in-your-mouth chicken curry that tastes like the stuff in restaurants.