Red Bean, Sweet Potato, and Peanut Stew

Another one-pot dish. I used a rice cooker but any large pot will work.

Ingredients:

Canned red beans, rinsed well
Canned diced tomatoes
Sweet potatoes/yams, diced and softened in microwave
Peanut butter, about 1/4 cup
Onion, diced
Garlic, chopped
Fresh ginger, chopped
Cayenne Pepper to taste
Curry powder (about 2 tablespoons)
Salt to taste
Lime squeezed on top
Water

Heat the garlic and onion in oil in the bottom of the pot and cook till clear. Add ginger and spices and cook another minute or two. Add sweet potatoes, coat. Add beans and tomatoes, stir. Bring to a boil and then turn down to simmer. Add peanut butter. Add water as needed to maintain slight soupiness (shouldn't be like a paste). Simmer until sweet potatoes are well-cooked. Salt to taste and squeeze lots of fresh lime juice on individual portions. Serve over rice. It's also really good if you mix the rice in a lot.

Curried Garbanzo Beans with Swiss Chard

I made this curry in a rice cooker during my lunch break. It would also be an easy one-pot meal on the stovetop.

Ingredients:

2 cans garbanzo beans, rinsed well
1 can coconut milk
1 thinly sliced onion
Chopped fresh ginger
1 large bunch of Swiss chard, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons of curry powder
1/4-3/4 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
Olive Oil


Heat the oil in the bottom of the pan.
Add the onion and cook till clear
Add the ginger and spices and mix well
Add the coconut milk and garbanzo beans
Add the chard and simmer until chard is well cooked.

Serve over rice.

Peanut Butter and Saltines

There were only three or four saltines left last night when I discovered this snack lying about among party-goers. Brian said that this is what his Dad had for a snack in his office where he worked as a doctor.

This is a good example of a snack that is easy to always have around the house and also very easy to forget about.

Guacamole

This is a simple and delicious guacamole recipe that is flavorful and very fast to make.

Ingredients:
Hass avocados
Limes
Salt
Hot sauce (tapatio or valentino or crystal are all ideal) if available--if not, use red pepper flakes
Cilantro if available

Slice all avocados lengthwise and remove pits.
Scour the flesh of the avocado in a grid pattern.
Mash up the avocado with a fork while still in the skin (this helps mix it up later).
Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and then mash together in a bowl.
Add remaining ingredients to taste and mix well.

A Delicious Sandwich

This delicious sandwich consists of:

Rosemary bread
Lettuce, tomato, etc.
Quickest Peanut Sauce (#3)
Seasoned Tofu


The Quickest Peanut Sauce (#3) is peanut butter, lemon juice, and pizza flakes. It is so quick it doesn't even get its own entry.

Seasoned tofu is a package of tofu baked at 350 for 1 hour (turned once) in a pan with a mixture poured on it of equal parts soy sauce and water (totaling 1/2 cup) with about a half teaspoon of Chinese five spice and two teaspoons of ground fennel seeds.

If you don't want to make the seasoned tofu you can just fry up some tempeh in a little soy sauce and it'll still be good.

The seasoned tofu is from a recipe in the excellent book entitled Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd by Mollie Katzen. It has delicious recipes for 24 or more people.

Serve with Corn on the Cob in the summer and steamed greens in the winter and potato chips in the fall and sweet potato fries later in the winter.

This is a good recipe to keep in mind if you need to pack a lunch every day for a week. You can make up a batch of the tofu and then a batch of the peanut sauce and then it takes about 2 seconds to assemble the sandwich each night. Then you can be like, "no, thanks, I don't need to buy a salad sandwich, I have the best sandwich ever right in my bag".