How to get your family to eat their veggies and enjoy it: African Stew

Health Benefits

• Ginger: Amongst many other benefits, “Ginger promotes the secretion of saliva and gastric juices improving your child’s appetite and digestion” (Parent Circle).
• Garlic: “Garlic is rich in essential nutrients and offers your kids lots of health benefits and curative effects” such as intestinal problems, earache, hypertension, eye infection, cough, and colds to name a few. (Mom Junction)
• Celery: “It’s a good supply of vitamins and minerals, supply of antioxidants, strengthens the immune system, remedy for digestive problems, offers nervous protection and provides a remedy for respiratory conditions. (Parenting Healthy Babies)
• Onions: ​It helps get rid of flu, cough, fever, bloated stomach, colds, ulcers, and mosquitoes to name a few. (Dr. Health Benefit.com)
• Peppers: Are a good source of vitamins and fiber beneficial for digestion and other bodily functions. (parenting healthy babies)
• Tomatoes: They include a good supply of vitamin A, good source of antioxidants, helps in building stronger bones, strengthens the immune system, remedy for acidosis and reduces the chance of lead toxicity in children” (parenting health babies)
• Olive Oil: According to Mom Junction, Olive oil helps with ADHD symptoms, prevents cardiovascular disease and cancer, promotes brain development, is rich in vitamins, keeps hair and skin health, high on calories, and reduces risk of obesity. 

PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION!

If you have a big family with 3 or more kids, it pays to shop in bulk plan your meals in advance. What we’ve found to work great is to shop for groceries specific to a dish, and then prep the ingredients for that dish and freeze those. That way you can change the flavor without making too many changes. Every month, we prepare the bulk ingredients (tomatoes, celery, all the peppers, peeled and sliced ginger, and garlic) into 4 to 5 single-serve gallon freezer bags and freeze them. 1 bag cooks enough for us to last 2 to 3 days. We also prepare chicken or meat in advance and freeze it so we can add it to the stew when it’s almost done, or have it as a side on the plate. Preparing the ingredients and combining them significantly saves time when dinner needs to be prepared in a hurry. It helps to dedicate a day to meal planning and prepping so that cooking and eating become easier in the busy rush of the week.

This stew is great with different types of protein sources, including boiled eggs if there’s no meat available. Chicken is our favorite (and cheapest), so we prep our chicken in advance. We season it to our liking, varying the ingredients to switch up the flavor, then fill up a gallon-size freezer bag or whatever size you want and freeze it too. Simply take out each bag the night before to thaw out in the sink, or use microwave power defrost a few minutes before.

We have even taken it a step further by frying the seasoned chicken and freezing that as well to really shorten cooking time.

This stew can be prepared with a multitude variety of protein sources, including but not limited to: Salmon and other seafood varieties, beef, beef trip, dried fish, cowhide, gizzards, etc. Each protein has to be seasoned and possibly cooked before adding to the stew. Salmon (fresh or thawed) can be added directly when the stew only has about 5 to 10 minutes left on the stove because salmon is a tender fish and doesn’t need to be cooked for long.

Ingredients

• 10 medium Roma Tomatoes
• 4 medium yellow onions
• 3 stalks of Celery
• 3/4 to 1 cup sliced Ginger
• 1 cup Garlic
• 1 medium Green Bell Pepper
• 2 Medium Red Bell Pepper
• 1 Medium Jalapeno pepper
• 2 cup Olive Oil (use less if you prefer)
• 6 to 12 oz tomatoes paste
• 10-12 pieces of chicken drumsticks
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 shrimp crevette seasoning
• seasoning for your chicken
• curry powder
• thyme
• parsley
• Habanero pepper (Optional but amazing if you can stand the heat. Please skip if cooking for kids)

Preparations

1. Season the chicken, let it marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You can then freeze single-cooking size in freezer-safe containers, or fry the seasoned chicken and set aside, or freeze them for later.
2. Wash, cut, and freeze all your vegetables (except the Onions), place them in freezer-safe containers, and freeze.
3. Peel and dice your onions. This can be done right before cooking or done ahead of time and placed in the freezer separate from the other vegetables.

Directions

1. Puree the vegetables (tomatoes, celery, ginger, garlic, and peppers) in a blender for about 60 to 90 seconds into a smooth consistency and set aside.
2. Using a 6 quartz or larger size pot, heat the oil on medium heat.
3. Once hot, gently place your marinated chicken into the hot oil and fry until golden brown, then flip over and fry the other side until golden brown as well. You may have to turn it over a few times to ensure all the sides are cooked thoroughly. This should take about 10 to 15 minutes. Then remove the chicken from the pot and set it aside.
4. Peel and dice onions. A food processor is convenient and shortens the prep time. Pour the diced onions into the oil and fry until translucent.
5. Add the tomato paste and let it simmer for about 1-2 minutes.
6. Add the pureed vegetables and 1/2 of the chicken broth; use the remaining chicken broth to rinse the blender out and pour into the pot. Stir, and let simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. Now add the fried chicken and season to taste. Let simmer for about 10 more minutes until you see the oil starts to collect at the top of the stew.
8. Serve over rice, use as a dip for bread or chips, service with fufu, and enjoy!