Friday Recipe - African Yam Stew

You will find many variations on this dish if you search the internet, but here is mine! While my husband and I usually eat very simple meals, our favorite thing to do is put a lot of yummy things together and make a big pot to last a few days. Maybe you can make a big pot on Sunday for your household and enjoy it for lunch early in the week!

African Yam Stew - makes about 6 servings
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free
Estimated time (not including cooking beans): 50 minutes

Ingredients
1/2 cup water
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
2 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 TBsp minced ginger
1 TBsp minced garlic
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander
2 cups vegetable broth
3 cups tomatoes, diced (I used about 6 medium-large roma tomatoes)
7 cups sweet potatoes (yams), diced (~3 medium-large sweet potatoes)
1.5-2 cups garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1.5-2 cups black beans
1/4 cup almond butter (can also use peanut butter if you prefer - I'm an almond girl!)
1.5 cups corn (2-3 ears)
6 cups leafy greens (we used one bunch of lacinto kale - but any thicker green will do such as collard greens, mustard greens, spinach, etc.)

Directions
Note: the beans should be cooked beforehand unless you prefer to use canned.
Dice the onions, peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and set aside. Mix the ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander. Portion the beans.
In a large stockpot on the stove, add the water, onions and peppers and saute until the onions become translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the spice mix and stir for another minute. Add the broth, tomatoes, potatoes and beans. Add the almond butter and stir until melted throughout the mixture.
Bring all contents to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. As this simmers, prepare the corn and wash the greens.
After 20 minutes, add the corn and greens and simmer another 10 minutes. The stew is done when the greens and yams are soft. Spoon you a soup-full and enjoy! Some people serve with bread or over rice.

Nutrition per serving:
526 calories
to reduce calories without greatly affecting portion size, halve the beans for a 100 calorie per serving reduction OR remove the nut butter for a 67 calorie per serving reduction OR remove the corn or kale for a 30 calorie per serving reduction
11g fat (a low-fat version would not use the nut butter)
1g saturated fat
93g carbs
the easiest carb reduction is to reduce the beans
20g fiber (half comes from the beans)
13g sugar (half comes from sweet potatoes)
21g protein
with the beans serving as the highest source of protein, halving these would lower the amount of protein per serving by a quarter, or approx. 5g per serving

692% Vitamin K *kale
654% Vitamin A *sweet potatoes, kale
169% Vitamin C *kale, tomatoes
121% Manganese *Garbanzo, kale, sweet potatoes
73% Folate     *beans
50% Magnesium
50% Copper
48% Potassium  *sweet potatoes
44% Phosphorus
41% Thiamin
41% Iron
40% B6         *sweet potatoes
26% Calcium    *1/3 from kale
24% Riboflavin
22% Zinc       *half from beans
20% Niacin
0% Cholesterol

As you can see, the nut butter added a lot of calories and fat to the recipe but was not a top contributor to the nutritional value of the dish. Therefore, a low fat version that does not use nut butter would be a great alternative. Corn, a source of carbs and sugar, also isn't very nutrient dense compared to the other items in this dish and the sweet potatoes should sustain the sweetness of the dish in the absence of corn.

PLEASE NOTE that the above nutritional values are estimated and expected to be higher than the final product as cooking can reduce the nutritional content of food but most nutritional values were derived from raw food calculations (self nutrition data).