Bariatric Foodie Play with your food
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. 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!
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:
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 3 tomatoes diced (I use big vine tomatoes)
- 2 garlic clove minced
- 1 can peas and carrots (12-15 oz.)
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp tumeric
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 4 oz tomato paste
- 1/4 cup sriracha sauce
- 3 cans garbanzo beans (15 oz. cans)
- 4 cups baby spinach
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 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 with all the 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).