Brazilian Black Bean Stew

Brazilian Black Bean Stew

There’s something so fascinating about Brazil.  I’m really curious about their cuisine and definitely want to explore more recipes.  This one comes from Color Me Vegan by Coleen Patrick-Goudreau and was one of the first recipes that caught my attention when flipping through the book.  This week, my friend Merry and I are cooking soups or stews every night for dinner and our little challenge provided me with the perfect opportunity to make this dish.

The colours and fragrance from the pot as it cooked were enticing and spicy.  I must admit to being a total novice cooking with hot peppers and this is actually the first time in recent memory I’ve cooked with a whole, fresh jalapeño.  Of course it squirted me directly in the eye while I was carefully chopping so I won’t soon forget the experience but I’m slowly starting to incorporate more recipes with a little heat.   I know my daughter won’t be thrilled with this offering but I hope to distract her with a pretty green edamame soup and maybe some cupcakes?

Okay, down to the nitty-gritty.  Instead of 2 cans of diced tomatoes I used one can of fire roasted tomatoes and 3 fresh.  I also forgot the mango but I figured the ginormous sweet potato would add enough sweetness to balance out the spice of the hot pepper.  I couldn't find Mexican spiced veggie sausage in our local market so I ended up using tofu beer sausages made by Tofurkey as an experiment.  The one and a half cups of water called for in the recipe was definitely not enough.  I added at least another full cup, if not more, of liquid after the beans went into the pot. 

This is a definite make again.  It’s colourful, balanced, slightly spicy, earthy from the black beans and sweet from the yams.  I love the tomato base and the fire-roasted tomatoes added a smoky flavour and aroma while it was cooking.  A bit of cilantro to top it all off and you have the perfect stew.  YUMMY!  I ate mine with a bit of rice and some fried ripe plantains.  

Before I go, I must note that that the light in my kitchen at night is really awful.  I'm submitting this blog post and photo (as dark and bad as it is) to Nicole S. Young's giveaway contest on Google+ for her new book titled Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots because I would love, love, love to learn more about food photography and photography in general.   I take all my food photos on this super basic, digital pocket camera and one day dream of having a proper camera.