Peanut Stew with Winter Vegetables & Cornmeal Dumplings

Without doubt, this was one of the most unique stews I've ever made! Modified from an original recipe of Bryant Terry from the Afro-Vegan cook book, it was hearty, felt like a healthy indulgence, and was even better on day two! My only regret, not doubling the recipe. So, if you enjoy dumplings and a rich tomato broth full of winter vegetables, this may just be the perfect recipe for you!

As mentioned previously, this recipe is sourced from Bryant Terry’s Afro-Vegan cookbook, which I cannot recommend highly enough. He even pairs songs with the recipe, so you can have a full sensory experience.

Support Bryant Terry by getting this incredible recipe book here!

The only modifications I made were due to either missing ingredients (parsnips) & substituting in my favorite dumpling recipe. All recipe changes are listed below. Happy cooking!

Ingredients

Stew

1 tablespoon peanut oil

1 cup finely diced yellow onions

1 teaspoon paprika

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger (I used powder & was pleased with the outcome!)

2 large cloves garlic, minced

2 cups peeled and finely diced yellow potato (I didn’t peel!)

1/2 cup peeled and finely diced carrot (didn’t peel here either!)

1/2 cup peeled and diced parsnip (couldn’t find parsnip and added more potato & carrot instead)

2 cups peeled & diced sweet potato

3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

2 tablespoons tomato paste

5 cups vegetable stock

Freshly ground white pepper (which I discovered I don’t enjoy)

1/4 cup packed chopped flat-leaf parsley

Dumplings

*For this part of the recipe I veered significantly from Bryant Terry’s instructions. Years ago, I stumbled upon what I consider to be dumpling perfection, and modified that recipe to include cornmeal instead. If you would like Bryant’s version, check out p.52 of his book Afro-Vegan!

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 cup whole milk (I use extra creamy oat milk)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (Miyoko’s is particularly fantastic)

Instructions

To make the stew, warm the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, paprika, cayenne, and salt and saute until the onions are soft, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic, potato, carrot, parsnip (if you could find one!), and sweet potato and saute until the vegetables begin to soften, 5 to 7 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium low.

Put the peanut butter, tomato paste, and 2 cups of the stock in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into the saucepan and stir in the remaining 3 cups stock. Bring to a simmer, cover partially, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the dumplings. *Again, veering into a recipe for dumplings from Smitten Kitchen and not Bryant Terry. Stir the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt together. Warm the milk and butter until just warm (do not over-heat), about 1 minute. Stir the warmed milk mixture into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon until incorporated and smooth.

In the last fifteen minutes the stew is cooking, drop golf ball size portions of the dumpling batter across the surface of the stew using a spoon (or two spoons to keep your hands clean!) keeping 1/4 inch between them. Check one dumpling to ensure it’s cooked all the way through before turning off the stove.

Season the stew with salt and white pepper to taste. Serve each bowl of stew with a few dumplings on top. Garnish with the parsley.

Creamy Arugula Soup

Arugula

I recently had arugula in an incredible soup (recipe below), and that may just be my new favorite way to enjoy it. With a veggie this good, it’s hard to narrow it down! 

Have you ever grown this delicious green? If not, have you ever swung by the Farmers’ Market to get some and ask the grower how they do it? If you haven’t asked them about arugula, have you grown or asked others how they grow any of their crops? Ok, I definitely just threw too many questions out there at once. I tend to get fired up about growing food, it’s what I do and what I love so I’m always curious how often other people think about these things too! 

For our market garden, growing arugula is one of the most rewarding greens we’ve sown. We’ve felt lucky that for us, it tends to always germinate well, grow quickly, taste awesome, appear healthy and happy and sell well. I guess you could say it’s the complete package.

Not surprisingly, we aren’t the only ones who love arugula. As it turns out, some bugs do too, so after we seed, we protect the crop with row cover to prevent any damage. Sure, it’s a fair bit of extra physical labor to make sure the arugula looks flawless, but totally worth it. We’ll also grow a couple of beds at a time to make sure we have enough for everyone, planting successions every few weeks to try to be able to keep up a constant harvest. Since these plants love cool weather, and tend to bolt faster when it’s warm, we group our plantings of arugula toward the beginning and the end of the growing season to take advantage of the lower temperatures. Arugula grows quickly, so it usually doesn’t take more than one or two well timed weedings to make it through to harvest.

When it’s all said and done, arugula is quick to grow from seed to harvest, versatile to cook with or enjoy raw, epically yummy (I mean, who doesn’t love a mildly peppery green?!) and it’s popular at market! I’d love to know what you think of the recipe posted below, and of the Vegetablog too! What would you like to hear more about? Please leave comments, answers to the questions I asked above, or critiques in the comment section below. I would love to hear from you!

Without further ado, here is the creamy arugula soup recipe we made and really loved. Hope you do too!

Creamy Arugula Soup

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The original recipe inspiration used to craft up this soup remains almost exactly as it does in the original. However, we used about half the amount of coconut milk & included that change in the list below. Check out the original recipe at the following link: https://detoxinista.com/creamy-vegan-arugula-soup/

So, here are the details you need to know:

Creamy Arugula Soup
Serves about 4, depending on hunger levels

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound potatoes, chopped into 1 inch chunks
4 cups water or vegetable broth
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
3 cups fresh arugula
1/4 cup coconut milk
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, and sauté the onion and celery until tender, about 8 minutes. Add in the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about one more minute. Add in the chopped potatoes, 4 cups of water or broth, and salt and bring the liquid to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat and cover to let the vegetables simmer until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 20 minutes.

Once the potatoes are tender, add the arugula to the pot and stir until bright green, about 3 minutes. Transfer the soup to a blender and blend until smooth, taking special care to vent the blender lid. (I like to lightly cover the hole in the center of the lid with a thin dish towel so that the lid doesn’t blow off from the steam pressure.) Blend in batches if you need to.

Return the soup to the pot over medium heat and stir in the coconut milk. Season with additional salt, if desired, and black pepper and serve warm with any garnishes you like. I added an extra dollop of coconut cream (the thick cream found in a chilled can of coconut milk) and some chopped green onions.

*Moments before serving, we topped this gorgeous soup with fresh arugula for an extra pop of flavor and texture.*