Snowday Stew

In case you didn't hear the news, had a big snowstorm here on the east coast Sunday into Monday. We had lots of food in the house, so I wasn't one of those crazy people who ran out to the store to buy soy milk and bread. I didn't have any plans for meals though, so I took inventory of the fridge and decided to make eggplant and peanut stew. Like I said yesterday, I'm a huge fan of spicy peanut sauce, so I've made this dish a few times since my original post.  I didn't have all of the ingredients called for in the recipe, so I improvised. Never be afraid to improvise if you don't have all of the ingredients a recipe calls for. It's pretty impossible to "break" something like this. Here's what I did:

Eggplant Peanut Stew
Ingredients:
2 tablespoon peanut oil
1 cup red onion, diced

Small piece of fresh ginger, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 large eggplant, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1/2 bag frozen okra
1/3 cup natural peanut butter
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
sea salt
cayenne pepper
red pepper flakes
dried basil

Directions:
In a large pot over medium heat, saute the onions, garlic and ginger in 1 tablespoon of peanut oil for a few minutes, until the onion turns translucent. Add the eggplant and tomatoes and cook for about 5 more minutes. While that's cooking fry the okra on high in the other tablespoon of oil until the okra slime dissipates. Add the okra to the pot along with the broth, coconut milk, peanut butter and maple syrup. Add a pinch of salt, a little basil and the cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Let simmer for about 15 minutes, until the eggplant is soft. Enjoy!

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