ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Today I prepared my first vegetarian dish. I think it was vegan too, but I’m not 100% sure because it seems like there are tons of little things that can make food not vegan. Vegan wasn’t a requirement for me, anyway. I went to the library after work yesterday and got some books about vegetarian eating. One of the books I checked out was The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, by Nava Atlas.

I was a little afraid of how this would go over at my house, since my boyfriend is what you might consider a meat fan. I think if he could have beef cookies, pork toothpaste, and ham soda, he’d be happy. He’s the kind of person who would purchase bacon candy if it ever appeared on the market. Last night I read him a list of recipes I’d flagged from a couple of the vegetarian cookbooks. After I finished going through the list I looked up at him quickly, expecting to see a look of abject terror on his face, even though he’s had some time to prepare for this possibility.

“Well,” he said. “I can’t guarantee I’ll like them, but I’ll at least try them once. Any of those sound okay.”  In other words, he is a keeper.

So I picked a recipe for an African peanut stew, which sounded promising to me. I changed it a tiny bit.

* 1 tbsp canola oil
* 1 medium onion, chopped
* 5 garlic cloves, minced
* 2 cups shredded green cabbage
* 2 medium sweet potatoes, diced
* 1 16-oz can diced tomatoes
* 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
* 2 cups frozen okra (or use green beans if you hate okra)
* 1/2 cup reduced fat chunky peanut butter
* 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
* 1 tsp salt

Heat the oil in a soup pot and cook the onion and garlic in it for a couple minutes over medium heat until they get tender. If it starts to stick, add a little water to unstick it. Then add the cabbage, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and ginger, along with 3 or so cups of water. It doesn’t have to be exact. You can eyeball it. Bring it all to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Then add the frozen okra and stir in the peanut butter, little by little, until it melts into the broth. Add the red pepper flakes and salt and stir well. Simmer for another 10 minutes or so. If needed, add some hot water to thin it out a little. Serve over hot rice or with bread.

We rated this recipe a B- or so. It has good potential, but it felt like something was missing. We didn’t have any rice ready, so we just ate it with bread instead, so maybe it would be better with rice. I liked it pretty well overall. I feel a little bad admitting this, but maybe what it’s missing is…meat? I kind of thought it might be good with shrimp, crab meat, or a smidge of finely chopped chicken.

We ate about an hour ago, and I’m kind of feeling a bit peckish again now. But this is my first try. We’ll see how this goes.