MoFo Day 18: Tunisian Vegetable Stew

After yesterday's disappointment I was feeling a bit anxious in case I produced another meal I didn't enjoy. I needn't have worried. This is a stew that I will definitely be making again. In some ways it's similar to the recipe I made on Day 15, but the addition of  sultanas and dried apricot give the stew an additional depth and together with the spices they give the stew a delightful fragrance. The lemon juice gives it a bit of a zing. I served mine on barley couscous with steamed green vegetables and topped with green baby leaves.

Tunisian Vegetable Stew                  

1 onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, crushed  
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
200 g  kale or other green leafy veg, shredded

225 g cooked chickpeas
250 g (1/2 can) chopped tomatoes
150 ml vegetable stock
25 g golden sultanas and/or dried apricots   
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
pinch of ground cinnamon
100 g mushrooms, sliced
1 courgette (zucchini), cut into matchsticks

Saute onion and garlic in vegetable stock for a few minutes. Add peppers and chilli and cook for a few minutes more. Add kale, chickpeas, tomatoes and vegetable stock and spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Add mushrooms and courgette and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

 
                         

MoFo Day 15: Spicy Tunisian Chickpeas

For today I decided to make a recipe using the harissa paste I made yesterday. Using pre-cooked or tinned chickpeas makes this a really quick and easy recipe. I served mine with steamed veg but it would be good on a bed of couscous or brown rice.

Spicy Tunisian Chickpeas

1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2.5 cm fresh ginger root, grated 
1 pinch of saffron
1 small red pepper
1 small green pepper 
1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp harissa

225 g tomatoes, skinned and chopped
225 g cooked chickpeas
Fresh parsley, chopped to garnish     

Saute the diced onion and garlic in 1 Tbsp of water or vegetable stock for 3 minutes. Add ginger, saffron and diced peppers and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, lemon juice and harissa and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add chickpeas and  cook for a few more minutes. Serve garnished with chopped fresh parsley. 

           

MoFo Day 11: Minted Haricot and Chickpea Salad

I thought I'd try another salad, this one using a combination of dried and fresh beans. The original recipe called for fresh broad beans but the only fresh beans I could find were chickpeas. Edamame would also be good in this salad. This is another lemon infused salad but this time the lemon is combined with fresh mint which gives a real freshness. This salad was ok but I much preferred the spicy combination of yesterday's lentil salad. 

Minted Haricot and Chickpea Salad

125 g fresh chickpeas
125 g cooked haricot beans
50 g tomato. skinned and chopped
4 spring onions, finely chopped 
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp vegetable stock
Juice of half a lemon 
2 Tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

Steam chickpeas until tender. Combine in a bowl with haricot beans, tomato and spring onions. In a separate jug or bowl mix together the crushed garlic, vegetable stock and lemon juice. Pour over the beans, add fresh mint, mix well and put into the refrigerator until cold. Serve on fresh green salad leaves, garnished with fresh mint leaves.

                        

MoFo Day 2: Albondigas

It's my second virtual day in Spain and after a scan through my recipe books I decided to tackle Albondigas - usually meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce. I found a great recipe for Tempeh Albondigas at Vegan Dad's blog but I didn't have any tempeh in the fridge so I decided to use his recipe for inspiration and to adapt the wheatballs from Robin Robertson's Vegan on the Cheap. You can find the recipe online here, but I highly recommend Vegan on the Cheap, which is one of my favourite cookbooks. I haven't made these wheatballs since I started Eating To Live so I was interested to see how they would turn out without any added oil. I replaced the olive oil in the recipe with a tablespoon and a half of vegetable stock, used smoked paprika in place of sweet paprika and added half a teaspoon of ground cumin to the mix. I baked them in the oven on baking parchment and the wheatballs kept their shape much better than the last time, when I fried them. 

While the wheatballs were baking, I made my sauce. I made it in the Vitamix and then heated it up on the stove so it was really quick and easy. The recipe calls for heating the wheatballs in the sauce - I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't fall apart when cooking. This made plenty of really tasty, sweet and spicy smoky sauce and I'm confident that it will freeze well, as do the wheatballs. I served mine with some steamed cauliflower, broccoli, petits pois and edamame. It would be really good as part of an assortment of tapas, so I hope to try out some more tapas recipes as the week goes on.

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Sauce:

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

half an onion chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped 
1 small red bell pepper, chopped

400 g creamed tomatoes or passata

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp fresh parsley

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1 date

juice of half a lemon 

freshly ground black pepper

Put garlic, onion, tomatoes and red bell pepper in the blender together with half the passata and blend briefly. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, add  some water or vegetable stock until you get the correct consistency.

Pour the sauce into a frying pan and heat over medium flame for 5 minutes. Add the wheatballs, coat with sauce and cook for a further 5 - 7 minutes.

Serves 3