Welcome back, we’re once again celebrating Meatless Monday with another delicious recipe for you to enjoy.  Planet Forward supports the Meatless Monday campaign – a non-profit initiative in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  It’s part of an eco-friendly worldwide movement to reduce consumption of animal products in favour of more plant-based meals to fight global warming and improve our personal health.  This week we bring our love of chick peas to the dinner table with an easy-to-prepare vegetarian recipe.

Chickpea and Peanut Stew

(serves 3 – courtesy of Kake’s Cookery recipes)

Ingredients:

• 1 x 425g (16oz) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• 1 medium onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 mild green chilli pepper
• about 500ml (18 fl oz) vegetable stock – from a cube is fine
• 50g (2oz) peanuts or peanut butter
• 1 x 400g (16oz) can tomatoes
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
• 1/2 tp turmeric powder
• 1 medium zucchini – about 200g (7oz)
• 1 sweet green bell pepper
• 100g (4oz) mushrooms
• Salt and black pepper
• (optional) 4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

Preparation:

1. Chop the onion, garlic and chilli. Chop up the tomatoes in their can. Halve the zucchini and slice into half-moons, then cut the mushrooms into chunks of roughly the same size. Deseed the pepper and cut it into 1 cm (1/2 inch) squares.
2. Drain the chickpeas and rinse well. If using peanuts rather than peanut butter, puree the peanuts in the blender with a little stock.
3. Brown the onions in vegetable stock, or in a little oil if you prefer, using a fairly large saucepan.
4. Add the garlic and chilli and stirfry for 30 seconds. Now add the peanut butter or peanut puree and all the other ingredients. Use only as much stock as you need to make the required consistency.
5. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes or as long as you want; depends on how crisp you like your vegetables.
6. Serve with rice or couscous and fresh bread.

It’s a pretty simple recipe to prepare with a lot of flavor.  I hope you like it.  Thank you for choosing a meat-free alternative one day a week and supporting Meatless Mondays – to learn more about it, visit meatlessmonday.com.  Bon Appetite!