Food and Cooking

This is one of my favorite recipes: https://www.budgetbytes.com/african-peanut-stew-vegan/

Easy, tasty, filling, and the perfect fall food. Would probably freeze great if you left the rice separate!

I'm not vegan but my dinner today fits the bill, as long as you use canned chickpeas:

• cut kabocha [pumpkin? squash?] into large chunks
• boil it in water or veg broth, alongside some seasoning
• puree it, send it back to the same pot
• [optional] add tomato paste
• add chickpeas, let them simmer together until the broth thickens due to the chickpeas juice

Amounts are eyeballed (in your case, heart-measured). Seasoning is up to your tastes, but if unsure: I use salt, curry powder, cayenne pepper. It tastes really great with some bread.

And yes, it freezes really well.

I tend to wing it a lot with stew-ish things. Here's one set of rough instructions:

• Saute any combo of mushrooms/onions/garlic/cherry tomatoes/peppers in olive oil
• Add 3 cups water/vegetable broth, bring to boil
• Stir in 1 cup green lentils/red lentils/yellow split peas/green split peas, stir as it comes back to a boil
• Season with salt/pepper/smoke seasoning/chili/whatever looks good
• Simmer 15-30 minutes till done

Freezes fine, though I usually eat it before it makes it to the freezer

If you have a blender, food processor, or immersion blender you can add beans, lentils, etc and veggies into a red pasta sauce to get your protein and veggies in with keeping a good texture. Just blend up yours beans and veggies (I use frozen stir fry mix but anything works) and add into the sauce as you simmer it for a while. Works well to thicken up a sauce by doing this, so save some pasta water to get the consistency right.

Depending on time I try to simmer my sauce for an hour or two.

If you combine this with whole wheat pasta you have a cheap, healtht, great tasting meal that's vegan friendly (if you don't add cheese at the end). I'm sure this is blasphemy for an Italian, but I love the meal.

This potato soup is delicious and freezes very well.

Turkish Lentil Soup

• 2 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 onion, diced

• 3 cloves of garlic

• 1 Tbsp tomato paste

• 1 potato, peeled and diced

• 200g of any lentils you like, red or yellow lentils are traditional

• 1l water or stock

• salt & pepper to taste

• 1 tsp dried mint

• sprinkle of msg

• cumin

• paprika powder

Just fry the onions and garlic first, add tomato paste and the lentils and the diced potatoes fry a bit more, then add water and simmer until the lentils are cooked. Then season.