African Peanut-Sweet Potato Stew

When I graduated from NC State with my Master's in Public History, I needed to celebrate.  And I needed the celebration to be huge.  So, my roommate, classmate, fellow graduate, and best friend Emily and I went on an awesome--but budget conscious--girls' celebratory trip to Florida.  We stayed at a Disney hotel and spent time at all the Disney theme parks.  (We also took an Orlando city bus to Sea World.  That was an adventure in more that one way.)

For our trip we bought the Disney dining plan and we decided to go to several really cool restaurants for dinners.  One was the Boma restaurant in the Animal Kingdom resort/hotel.  (No, we didn't stay at the Animal Kingdom.  Duh.  We were poor grad students.  We stayed at the bargain Disney hotel where the outdoor stairways were disguised by giant Rubics cubes, not the hotel where giraffes can visit your room's porch or whatever.)  Boma was--and still is--a buffet that serves all kinds of African food.  It was amazing!  Of course, while we were trying all kinds of things, the parents with 2 or 3 kids in tow were dishing up mac and cheese.  But, really, they should know better than to bring their kids to fancy places with "weird" food.

The single most memorable thing that I tried was a peanut stew with root vegetables.   I literally have had dreams about how good this stuff was and I remember thinking at the time, "This has to be something I could make and it would be so good on a cold winter night."  With that memory in mind, I recently started searching for a recipe to try.  I couldn't find the actual Boma recipe, but there are tons of African peanut stew recipes out there.  I found one that used a crock pot from Good Housekeeping and used it as the basis for my first attempt at recreating that long-ago food memory (see recipe below).

I won't say that my recipe is as good as the Boma version, but I really, really liked it.  It is definitely a keeper.  Also, it kept and reheated well.  In fact, the leftovers might have been better than the stew on the first day.  The spices could be tinkered with to produce a stew that is to anyone's liking.  This version is very mild and the peanut butter is the dominant flavor, but if you wanted it spicier you could definitely do that, too.  

Recipe makes 5 generous (2 cup) servings

Ingredients

• 3 heaping teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 - 2 cups fresh cilantro leaves and stems, chopped (I just chopped all the leaves in a grocery store bundle)
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2/3+ cup creamy or chunky peanut butter (I used Skippy reduced fat creamy peanut butter and it was awesome!)
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. ground red/cayenne pepper
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup water
• 3 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 package frozen green beans, steamed or otherwise prepared as directed on package
• unsalted, dry roasted peanuts

Directions

1. Peel and chop sweet potatoes
      
   
2. Drain and wash garbanzo beans
3. In blender, blend garlic, cilantro, tomatoes with juice, peanut butter, cumin, cinnamon, ground red pepper, and teaspoon salt.
        
   
4. Pour peanut-butter mixture into slow-cooker and stir in water. 
5. Add prepared sweet potatoes and garbanzo beans and stir.
   
6. Cover slow cooker with lid and cook low setting for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours or until potatoes are very tender. (It took mine more like 5 1/2 hours, but some of my sweet potato chunks were a bit larger) 

   

   Yes, this really is just a photo of my slow cooker cooking.  You can tell it is really early, though, because there's no condensation on the inside of the lid :)

7. About 10 minutes before sweet potato mixture is done, cook green beans as label directs and gently stir green beans into stew.
8. When serving, top with a handful of peanuts.  Stir peanuts in before eating.