African Peanut Soup

This past week I wanted to try a vegan dish, perhaps to balance my minor flop earlier. I am an omnivore, but I do appreciate a good vegan recipes that makes me want to eat it. I think I found it.

A warm bowl of peanut soup

This is usually the time of year that I have the foresight to look for vegan dishes to practice before Lent comes along. Also, as Christmas approaches, I start a fictive month called NotPaidSoonEnoughuary, the time between my December and January pay dates. Starting in the summer, with all the cheap, good, seasonal vegetables, I start making soups and meals to freeze for convenience as well as surviving the 41 days between paydays. Until the end of the year, I am always planning to make dishes with leftovers to be set aside to revisit at the end of January. In short, if my dish is a success, I freeze it and I can usually hold off tapping into it before Lent so I don’t always have to cook, killing two birds with one stone.

I went to Stephanie O’Dea’s A Year of Slow Cooking as a guide for a vegan dish, I found her Crockpot African Peanut Soup. I went to my trusty source for African cuisine, The Congo Cookbook, for more information. “Various peanut soups are common throughout Africa. Some are very simple, others more elaborate. They are often eaten as a main course….” The recipes include to some degree the following: chicken stock or broth, onion, bell pepper, garlic, salt, black pepper, cayenne or red pepper, chili peppers, carrots, tomatoes, peanut butter or peanut paste and sometimes an animal protein in the form of chicken, goat or beef. O’Dea’s recipe came from one on All Recipes that started out vegan, through the use of vegetable broth. On the other hand, I would also recommend bulking this up with some chicken tights and shredding the meat when finished cooking.


African Peanut Soup, adapted from Stephanie O’Dea’s Crockpot African Peanut Soup

Ingredients:

Finest West African Hot Pepper

1 large yellow onion, diced
2 red bell peppers, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz can of crushed tomatoes, with liquid
6 cps vegetable broth
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ - ½ tsp chili powder
½ cp uncooked brown rice
3/4 cp peanut butter

Directions:

1. Place all of the ingredients but the peanut butter into the slow cooker; cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. 
2. Stir in peanut butter, and cook on high for 20-30 minutes, or until fully incorporated.

Serves: 4-6

As you can see, I am fortunate to have some West African chili powder and I put the larger amount (the ½ teaspoon) in and it gives the soup a nice warm spicy kick.  However I do find the spice mellows out as the soup remains in the refrigerator and it’s less of an assault on the senses two days later then when first made.