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Dear Internet,
Alright Internet, I’ll get straight to the point: It’s over 90F. It’s going to be hot for days. You want something to eat but you don’t to cook (and this is taking into consideration you’ve already ate your vodka infused freezy-pops and drank enough slurpees for a million brain freezes) and you don’t want to have to keep making a meal every day. Enter slow cooked Moroccan stew:
Okay, I fudged. There is some cooking, but not a lot. Like 10 minutes. Tops! It won’t hurt, I promise, to turn on your stove. (Just don’t forget to turn it off when you’re done.)
TheHusband and I have started our split schedules this summer – he is working up north and tending to cabin, while I work down state during the week before heading up to him on the weekends. When we left a few weeks ago to head up north, we cleaned the fridge and pantry out of anything that could possibly rot while we were gone. I knew coming back I’d have to do a small shop for the few days I was in town and that I’d need to do this every week.
The problem is: I don’t cook. Well, I can cook, but when TheHusband is much better at it than me, I don’t see the point. On the flip side, as part of my BECOME SUPER AWESOME project is learning the fundamentals of cooking. While I haven’t gotten there yet (the year is still young…), this exact situation I’m in now is the reason why I wanted to learn the fundamentals of cooking so that I’m not grazing on veggies and hummus for all of my meals for four days.
Enter Twitter. And Davey. Davey posts he has/is making a nomilicous slow cooked Moroccan stew and did any one want the recipe? I said sure! In addition to sounding delicious, the idea of making a one pot meal, that I didn’t have to watch, and could be eaten over the course of many days appealed. Bonus points: I had 90% of the ingredients already and shopping this week was a breeze since it was essentially chocolate, a box of a cereal, and sugar free Red Bull.
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Slow Cooked Moroccan Stew
Adapted from Davey.
Vegetarian. Dairy Free. Gluten Free.
Prep time: 30-60 minutes
Cook time: 4-8 hours
Ingredients
2-3 Tbsp EV Olive Oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 small zucchini, cut into small chunks
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried chili flakes
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried ginger (or you could use fresh ginger)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cans of diced tomatoes (Chopped will also work.)
2 or 3 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 Tbsp of honey
Good handful of raisins or currants
1 cup of dried apricots, cut into bite sized chunks
1 apple, chopped
1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
4-6 medium potatoes, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup red wine (sweet or dry depending how you want the stew to go) [OPTIONAL]
Instructions
- In a pan, heat up the oil and add onion, pepper, zucchini. Cook on med-low heat until veggies soften and the onion gets a little carmalized.
- Once veeggies have softened, add cumin, paprika, chili, cinnamon, ginger, and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
- Add tomatoes, lemon juice, honey, raisins/currants, and stir well. Simmer for a few more minutes.
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Turn the crock pot on low and line the bottom with apricots, chick peas, potatoes, apples, and carrots.
- Add the mixture from the pan on the top and stir well.
- Add wine, and stir again.
- Cook on low for 8-10 hours OR on high for 4-6.
Serves 6-8. At least.
Serve with rice (any flavor), couscous, pita chips, or fresh torn up baguette for sopping.
Notes
- Davey doesn’t give amounts for some things, like he just has “potatoes,” so the amounts listed above is what I used.
- He recommends pre-cooking the carrots, potatoes, and chick peas BEFORE going into the pot. This seemed like overkill since they would be slow cooking for hours so I opted to skip that part.
- The only ingredient I omitted from his version is mushrooms as I hate the damn things.
- I added red wine, upped the amount of a few spices, salt and pepper, swapped veggie oil for olive, used red potatoes, yellow squash for the zucchini, and added an apple.
- Davey also notes it freezes and reheats well, which makes this a great dish to make if you want something super delicious that you don’t mind eating several days in a row or for a potlock.
- I marked this vegetarian and not vegan since it contains honey and to stave off controversy.
End result: It was damned delicious. I had two bowls for dinner last night, using pita chips to scoop up the bits. There were enough leftovers to serve me for over a week. Since I got heavy handed on the honey and wine, it was slightly sweeter than I would have liked but overall I loved it.
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x0x0,
Lisa
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This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012