Coconut Milk and Chickpea Stew.

 

Last Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, our family went out to dinner to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday.  We went to my favorite local hot spot that has some really clean, vegan dishes and I had the most amazing soup.  It was the inspiration for this stew.  I’ve been tweaking and fine-tuning hoping to even come close to the magnificence that was the soup I had last week.  Although vegan, this stew is really filling, thick and delicious.  Even my most staunch carnivores, who tasted my soup at dinner, were raving about it.  I’m so anxious to have dinner tonight.  Even better – I put all of my ingredients into my new crock pot and let it cook all day.  Easy peasy.

Ingredients:

4 cups of vegetable broth (I used low sodium organic)
2 large yams, peeled and diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 green apple, peeled and diced
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño, diced (seeded if you don’t want the soup spicy)
1 -14 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes (I used organic Muir Glen)
2 cans of low sodium chickpeas, drained and rinsed
12 ounces of vanilla or plain coconut milk
1 lime, juiced
1 tablespoon of curry powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Salt and pepper
**Don’t add the flour initially, this will be used to thicken the soup prior to serving.
2-4 tablespoons of all purpose flour

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients into your slow cooker/crock pot on low and cook for 6-8 hours.  Less time, use the high setting.  About 30 minutes before serving, ladle about 2 cups of the broth into a bowl or large measuring bowl and add 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour.  Whisk until thickened.  Add that back to the slow cooker.  If the stew is still too soup-like, repeat.  This will help thicken the soup to a stew texture.  Garnish with plain Greek yogurt, thinly sliced jalapeños or a pinch red pepper flakes.  Fresh cilantro chopped is also perfect.  Serve alongside some crusty bread or whole grain crackers.

— Knead to Cook