Sunday, August 28, 2011

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.   


15 comments:

  1. Ouch. I am careful not to touch the seeds part of hot peppers when I chop. Even touching your hand to your eye hours later can be painful. Getting squirted in the eye must have been very painful.

    I almost always have fresh jalapenos in the house, and occasionally fresh serranos and other peppers, but jalapenos are my favorite.

    I'd leave out the vegan sausage, but otherwise, this sound and looks delicious.

    It's a fine photo, by the way. You do wonders with the camera that you have. I love the photos you take of your recipes.

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  2. sounds (I wish we could edit typos in our posts.)

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  3. Thanks Lisa, I should have waited until tomorrow to take a picture but I'm impatient and if I put off posting it might never get done.

    The stew was excellent and getting squirted in the eye was painful but kind of funny!

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  4. YUM! I didn't notice this soup was supposed to have mango in it when I eyeballed it. I'm going to have to try that out. I just bought some of that beer sausage yesterday, but haven't tried it out yet. How did you like it?

    That contest looks awesome. Good luck on it. I hear you about wanting a real camera, mine is five years old (the store made fun of me when I went to get a replacement battery for it last month) and it doesn't like to focus on the right thing when I take macros...Grrr.

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  5. I don't know how I missed such a major ingredient but I did! It still tasted amazing.

    The beer sausage was fine. It's not at all spicy so the other type of sausage probably would have added a bit more interest but I was happy with the spice level as it was.

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  6. I love spicy stuff and must admit to not having much experience with Brazilian cuisine. It looks good in the photo, although I would make sure to have a mango on hand, as I love mangoes in savoury dishes. I'll give this one a try with the Tofurky sausages, since they're easy to find.

    Cheers,
    Mark

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  7. Hi Mark,

    Thanks for your comments! I think the mango would be good and next time I make it I won't forget. I think just about any of the Tofurkey sausages would work in this stew.

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  8. It looks amazing....wish I could have it now...excellent decoration

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  9. Thank you so much Sazzrah! I wish you could have some now too but sadly it's all gone.

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  10. Lee, I think your photos are amazing! I hope you win that book :-)

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  11. Thanks Kathryn! I hope so too. I think my photography would improve if I did more cooking during the daytime LOL! The natural light seems to make a big difference.

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  12. I love the new look of the blog! The soup looks delish; think I must try it soon. Did you win the book? For just a basic point-and-shoot, you do a great job with the photos. Do you have a light box (easy to make and much cheaper than buying one)? That could help a lot with a dark kitchen. But, I'm no pro. My food photos are only adequate, at best. :)

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  13. Thanks Christina! I did not win the book as far as I know and I'm not sure if she's announced the winner yet. I'll go and take a look.

    I don't have a light box - thank you for suggesting that. I guess I could build one. I will Google how to do that. I'm such a night owl and I always get inspired to cook when it's pitch black outside. It's just not a good strategy for photographs. :-)

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  14. Wow, Maggie, thank you for commenting on my blog! I'm glad you like it. xoxoxoox

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