"African" Sweet Potato Stew [recipes]

Apparently it's a family thing to bring food items with you that need to be cooked when visiting your family. For Christmas, my sister brought up some sweet potatoes that she had grown but that she didn't think would keep properly. What to do with them? I eventually came up with the idea to make some African Sweet Potato Stew. A food that you can prepare in vast quantities when aiming to feed 10 people. I put "African" in quotes because when I went looking for the recipe, I discovered that I hadn't yet digitized the recipe I'd been using, and that there are a range of different African Sweet Potato Stews that depend on which African country one is referring to, across that vast, diverse continent. This one comes from Vertamae Grosvenor's Vertamae Cooks Again, but I've modified the preparation to suit my lazy efficient self. About it, she writes:

A good vegetarian stew with crusty bread and a hearty salad can be a satisfying meal even for nonvegetarians. This stew is very filling. The combination of sweet potatoes, peanuts, and vegetables is very prevalent in African cooking.

Ingredients:
3.5 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 stalk celery, chopped
1.5 C chopped cabbage
1 C chopped tomatoes
2 C tomato juice
0.5 tsp dried thyme, crumbled (we recently used turmeric and cumin instead)
0.5 tsp red pepper flakes
8 oz vegetarian sausage
1 C green beans
0.25 C peanut butter
1 C vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil and saute the onion, garlic, and ginger for about 5 minutes. Add the celery and cabbage and cook for 3 more minutes. Then add the sweet potatoes, tomatoes, tomato juice, green beans, thyme, red pepper flakes, and vegetable broth. Simmer everything until tender (20 mins?), then add the veggie sausage and peanut butter. Simmer a couple more minutes, then add salt and pepper and adjust the spices to taste. Delicious served over rice.

The Lean Months

Whew, airplane tickets, conference travel, and the accompanying dining-out all sure burn a hole in one's pocketbook. Add on the unexpected bike repairs for Frodo, the refurbishment of the Wild Blue Yonder, and annual rowing member dues, and, well. Motivation to keep it simple for the upcoming months.

I haven't exercised my institution's conference travel allowance or reimbursement before. A project for Monday. Even partial reimbursement would be a help. We shall see.

Christmas with the family [family]

Things started out normally enough: lovely warm living room with an inviting fire:



Delicious family breakfast featuring coffeecake sent in by slydevil's parents:



Everyone gathering round for the opening of presents:


Children full of excitement, running around to help distribute the gifts:


Adults glad to be awake and in each others' company:


It was shortly thereafter that things got vastly more entertaining.

You see, a couple weeks ago it occurred to me to track down some "large" googly eyes. At the last minute, in the midst of packing, I threw them in a bag along with some scissors and double-sided poster tape.

At the tail end of the gift-giving, I initially just gave one pair to each family member - a very humble gift.

My niece knew what to do with them, right away:


Then this happened:


And soon thereafter, this:


And it wasn't long before there was complete, glorious pandemonium. There are enough photos I'll put them under a cut.

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