Palegoldenrod

Ingredients

• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 sticks celery, chopped
• 1 green capsicum, seeded and diced
• 225g / 8oz / 3 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 2 zucchinis / courgetts, sliced
• 400g / 14oz can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 400g / 14oz can chopped tomatoes
• 150ml / 1/4 pint / 2/3 cup passata
• 30ml / 2tbsp tomato puree
• 15ml / 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• 1 tsp each hot chilli powder, ground cumin and ground coriander
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• natural yoghurt and cayenne pepper, to serve
• sprigs of fresh coriander, to garnish
• brown rice as a side
• Serves 4

Instructions

1. Put the onions, garlic, celery, green capsicum, mushrooms and zucchinis in a large saucepan and mix together
2. Add the kidney beans, tomatoes, passata, tomato puree and tomato ketchup
3. Add the spices - season with a bit of salt and pepper.
4. Mix well
5. Cover, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20-30 minutes (until vegetables are just tender).
6. Serve immediately with brown rice, a dob of natural yoghurt sprinkled with cayenne pepper
7. Garnish with fresh coriander sprigs

Commentary

OK, so you may be able to see how I could actually get this recipe to work. You pretty much just chop up the vegetables, dump everything in a pot and cook it. Its pretty failsafe. Don’t ignore the natural yoghurt. I used some greek style yoghurt (which I love) and it set the dish off perfectly. I wouldn’t serve it without the yoghurt, but a few of my guests chose to leave it aside and still seemed to enjoy the rest of the dish. This recipe allegedly serves 4, but with the brown rice is very filling. I served 4 (though none of us are huge eaters) and had enough left over for maybe one or two more servings.