Bryanna's Persian Chickpea and Green Bean Stew

This is another simple but wonderful recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan. It's from her cookbook "20 Minutes to Dinner." I got the recipe from a post Bryanna made on the Vegsource New Veggies board. I always serve this with brown rice.

1 onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 lb frozen whole small green beans or trimmed fresh green beans (I use 2 and 1/2 cups frozen cut green beans)
28 oz can diced tomatoes and juice
1 can (or 1 and 1/2 cups cooked) chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup chopped celery leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large nonstick pot, steam fry the onion and garlic until it begins to soften. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then turn down to medium heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes or until the green beans are tender.

Lori M's Sausage Chowder

I got this delicious recipe off the McDougall forum years ago posted by someone named LoriM. It calls for a faux hamburger "meat" and the only type I could find where I live is Yves Ground Round, as pictured below. This product is expensive and too processed for my liking, but it does work well in this recipe.























Next time I will use Bob's Red Mill TVP (textured vegetable protein). I think it's more reasonably priced and it's certainly not as processed, the only ingredient being soy flour.



















Here's the recipe:

1 lb faux ground "meat" of your choice
2 onions, chopped fine
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp sage
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 can chick peas
2 cans red kidney beans
3 potatoes, diced

Brown sausage and onions in a dutch oven and add all ingredients except the potatoes. Simmer 1 hour. Add potatoes, cook for an additiona 1/2 hour. Easily doubled and freezes well. You can add extra water and tomato sauce to thin it slightly, if you prefer. I like it thick.

Curried Yam Stew

This recipe is from the September 2006 McDougall Newsletter.

I will post the original recipe but I made it today with some modifications due to lack of ingredients. I used regular yams (I don't know what garnet yams are). I used cooked pinto beans and chopped kale instead of chick peas and spinach.

4 cups peeled and diced garnet yams
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 1/2 cups cooked beans)
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
4 cups packed fresh baby spinach leaves

Place the yams, tomatoes, garbanzo beans and broth in a large pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes, until yams are just tender. Add the remaining ingredients, except for the spinach leaves and mix well. Please the spinach leaves on top of the stew, cover and steam for 1 minute or so, then stir the leaves into the stew. Continue to cook, stirring frequently for 4 minutes longer. Serve at once.

Additional note by me: If you substitute kale in this recipe, steam the kale separately until it's tender and then stir into the stew. Kale leaves are a lot tougher than spinach leaves and take longer to cook.

Patrick's Beans and Greens

My good friend Julia who lives four hours away from me, surprised me with a visit today. I get to spend a few days with her and get caught up face to face (even though we do yak on the phone with each other a couple of times a week).

Julia always brings some food with her every time she visits. This time she brought a few simple ingredients and the two of us whipped up this meal for dinner. Credit for this wonderful recipe goes to her friend Patrick.

We started out by coarsely chopping up 8 garlic cloves. The garlic was added to the cooking pot along with 1 tsp of sesame oil and 2 tsp olive oil. (For a fat free version, the oil could be omitted and the garlic could be steam fried in water or wine). Brown the garlic on medium-high heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Add one can of drained chick peas and fry for another couple of minutes. Add an 8 oz package of washed spinach and cook until the spinach has wilted. Do not overcook spinach and serve immediately.

We served this dish with some mashed potatoes. And of course we also had to drink a toast to the creator of this recipe, Patrick, and his wife Jane, whom someday I will meet. :)