Chickpeas Stewed in African Peanut Sauce with Sweet Potatoes and Brown Rice

Becoming a vegetarian as a young adult greatly influenced my interest in cooking. When I first became a vegetarian I found it challenging to make the recipes I loved as a meat eater adapted to my new vegetarian diet. When I got married the challenge grew because I had someone else to cook for! Someone who wasn't a vegetarian, and who wasn't open to becoming a vegetarian.

In order to get my husband to eat vegetarian I have to entice him. I have to bait him with new flavors, interesting textures, and me proudly announcing that our families entire dinner only cost a few dollars! 

Recently I found a contest focused on frozen vegetarian foods from Cedarlane Foods, and was enticed to enter. Even though it was a voting contest and I've sworn them off my mind started racing with the kind of food and flavors I would want in a frozen vegetarian meal. The end result was me trying my hand at making several vegetarian entrees and freezing enough meals that my family will have dinner on busy nights during the holidays. Some of the meals were old standbys I had never though to freeze, and some of the meals featured new and interesting flavors. 

All of my recipes can be seen in the links below: 

Chickpeas in African Peanut Sauce with Sweet Potatoes Over Brown Rice

Caribbean Jerk Red Beans and Coconut Rice

Cuban Black Beans with Quinoa

Mushroom Stroganoff with Broccoli

Feel free to vote on one of these recipes, or all of them. My favorite is the African peanut sauce.

The best part of this recipe contest is that I ended up with so many cook ahead meal in my freezer! It will be great for the holiday season when things are so much busier, but I have a feeling we'll be adding these wonderful meals into our regular rotation year round. 

Chickpeas in African Peanut Sauce Over Rice with Sweet Potatoes and Red Peppers

Sweet potatoes:

1 Tbsp. Peanut Oil

2 Sweet Potatoes peeled and diced

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Coat sweet potatoes in oil and roast in the oven for about 1 hour or until sweet potatoes are tender.

Peanut Sauce:

½ Tbsp. peanut oil

1 white onion diced

2 green peppers diced

2 cloves garlic

2 cups water

1 can of tomatoes

1 cup of low sugar natural peanut butter

Salt and pepper

¼ tsp red chili pepper flakes (optional)

2 cups of prepared and drained chickpeas (or 2 cans)

In a heavy skillet add oil and onions and cook until translucent. Add peppers, and garlic and cook until peppers just softened. Add water, tomatoes, peanut butter and season to taste. Add red chili pepper flakes and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes until flavors are combined. Add chickpeas and heat through.

Serve over long grain brown rice.

The greatest part of this dish is watching my husbands face as he tries it and proclaims it good. Knowing he will go to his office with left overs proudly, and that I replaced another hamburger in the course of his life with something much much better. 

Enchilada sauce adventures!

Let’s face it, life is busy! And because of it I’ve been spending a lot of time and money on convenience food and take-out meals recently to feed my family. It’s not only expensive, but it’s also a lot of frankenfood I am not exactly proud to put on my table. So to combat this issue I’ve turned to freezer meals as a simple solution to get real food on the table on nights that are too busy to cook. Recently I’ve made 10 pans of lasagna, and today made 10 pans of cheese enchiladas with brown rice. I was surprised by the sheer mass of food it takes to fill 10 pans of food! Huge portions of onions, 4 of cheese and an entire bag of Costco tortillas, but what amazed me the most was how inexpensive it was to make my own enchilada sauce. While calculating the cost of each unit of enchiladas I decided it was not economical to buy pre-made sauce. It would raise my cost per pan by more then I was willing to pay, and included more artificial ingredients then I was willing to eat. Instead I made this simple enchilada sauce below that I ended up very pleased with. Keep in mind this makes a lot of sauce! It will make about 6qts of sauce, but this sauce freezes well, or you can make 10 pans of enchiladas and still have about 16 oz. of sauce left over for another meal as you can see below.

It starts with a puree of chilies. The pepper used here is Chili Negro and can be found in most supermarkets, or Hispanic markets.  

1 table spoon olive oil
2 large white onion
4 gloves garlic
2 bags chili negro
2 cups water

In a large Dutch oven add olive oil and onions; cook until onions are slightly translucent. Add garlic and continue to cook. Seed chilies and put into pot. Add hot water and cook until chilies are soft and re hydrated.

After chilies are cooled pour into blender and blend until smooth.

To make the rest of the sauce:

Chile paste above
2 large cans tomato sauce
1 large tomato can filled with water
1 cup vinegar
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp California chili powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Simmer until flavors are well combined.

This sauce was rich and dark. The pepper adds an almost raisin flavor with a slight sweetness and a mild heat. The seasoning adds earthiness and the tomato and vinegar add bright slightly tart vibrancy. I’m really pleased with this sauce and will use it again and again. The best part of it is though is the price! My sauce works out to be about 0.02 cents an ounce, whereas this Old El Paso sauce is .13 cents an ounce if purchased at amazon. It might not seem like a lot of savings when looking at it oz by oz but when you make 192oz of sauce this is $24.96 vs $4.41 (not including shipping of 12.57) and this is where our savings are! We are talking just a hair shy of 25.00 on savings just by making our own sauce- and the best part is, it tastes better!

I hope you enjoy. If you end up making your own sauce I would love to hear about it. Drop me a line and let me know.