Sweet potato stew

Wow! I was looking at my last entry which was in 2011 when I was rubbing my pork.  Couldn't help my use of words.  I have a warped sense of humour what can I say.  Lately I have been busy creating all kinds of wonderful treasures and since joining Weight Watchers I have had to make my creations fit my points budget.  Those of you familiar with Weight Watchers will know what I mean.

Todays creation was a bit of a lets see what's in the fridge and make something with it day.  After a couple of Facebook likes and recipe requests I figured it was time to start blogging again.

So here it is:

sweet potato stew with shitake mushrooms and quinoa

500g  sweet potato cubed,
1 medium diced onion,
1 peeled and diced carrot,
1 rib of celery diced,
1 leek cleaned and sliced,
2 cups of baby spinach,
1 cup frozen okra,
1 tablespoon olive oil,
1 liter chicken stock,
3 cloves garlic,
1/2 cup cilantro,
hot pepper paste, salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large heavy duty stew pot and sauté the potato, onion, carrot, leek and garlic until it starts to brown.  Pour in the chicken stock or if you are a veggie use veggie stock.  Let it simmer until the potato is tender.  Take off the heat and with a potato masher break up the stew a little.  (I like mine fairly chunky so I only mashed it about 6 times)  Add the spinach, okra, hot pepper paste and salt and pepper.  Let it simmer for another 10 minutes.  Serve with the cilantro.

quinoa and shitake mushrooms

1/2 cup quinoa cooked to the manufacturers instructions,
1/2 cup dried shitake mushrooms,
1/2 cup white mushrooms,
Salt and Pepper to taste

Soak the shitake mushrooms in enough boiling water to cover them until they are soft (approx. 10 mins) Then slice up the white mushrooms.  Sauté in a little oil with the drained shitakes until they are nicely browned and stir into the quinoa.

P.S I reserved my liquid from the shitakes and added it to the stew.  I also think the stew would be nice with some white beans in it for extra protein but I didn't have any on hand.