Sweet potato stew

October 8, 2011 by Miriam | 23 Comments

It really is amazing how after months in the cabinet my slow cooker suddenly will see a great flurry of activity. It’s often making recipes that easily would cook on the stovetop. The exception being I know there’s a yummy healthy option ready to go for dinner. There’s no need to stop and get an emergency snack on the way home.

I actually made this stew on Thursday night. Thursdays I rush home from work, take my dog to agility class then rush home to be on time for my online class chat session (mechanical properties of polymers, if anyone is wondering). If I don’t eat something quickly, I scarf down on whatever junk is handy.

This stew is actually quite healthy. I used sweet potato, asparagus, black beans and cranberries, all known for excellent nutritional properties. They are also not necessarily foods you would think of putting together. I don’t blame you.

But if you’re put off by the ingredients list, you would be missing out. The soup is naturally sweet despite the slight bite from some chili powder.

Sweet Potato Stew with Asparagus and Cranberries

Inspired by Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes – Caribbean Sweet Potato and Bean Stew

Ingredients

1 LARGE sweet potatoes (two medium sized), peeled and chopped
1 bag frozen asparagus
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons dried cranberries
1 small yellow onion, sliced
3-4 cups vegetable broth
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Place all ingredients in slow cooker.
Cover cook on low for 5 hours.
Garnish with dried cranberries and slivered almonds

If you don’t have or like frozen asparagus, frozen beans would do just fine.

I’m looking forward to some of this soup as leftovers while hubby races a 50k today. I’m still not racing, but I think I need to focus on one major thing at a time right now. Right now that is finishing this Master’s degree.

By the way, this month’s sweet or savory challenge is cranberries. I’m on the fence about if I’m going to enter this recipe, but the page has a lot of great information about the nutritional benefits of cranberries. There’s also lots of great reader submitted recipes to help you incorporate more cranberries into your life.

I will probably submit the recipe to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend link-up. Every week fantastic bloggers submit their weekend whole food recipes to share with the world.

Finally, I finally updated my recipe page. There are no images currently, but I had spent most of the summer adding new recipes without updating the page. The longer I went without updating the page, the more daunting it became. I decided to go ahead and make a temporary recipe page. Afterall, I’m not a professional blogger, I don’t have to be perfect