Potatoes! Onions! Garlic! Tomatoes! Chickpeas! Olives! White beans! Capers! Wine! Throw in a little cheese and this vegetarian dish is packed with healthy ingredients and, more importantly, great taste. If you are abstaining from meat on Fridays for Lent, this is an easy alternative.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
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The ingredients for some “stewed beans with potatoes and olives,” though that recipe title leaves out a lot of the flavor-packed ingredients. Note that I didn’t bother buying the recommended “new potatoes.” We had plenty of Gold spuds that I just washed and cut into pieces, and that worked great.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
The source book and the final product for this very good vegetarian dinner.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
A new cookbook appeared on our coffee table, or more exactly a used cookbook, since MT picked it up at the Osterhout Free Library book sale last year. Dubbed “The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook” with the subtitle “Your guide to the best foods on the earth,” it sounded promising. Add the second, smaller subtitle “What to eat, where to get it, how to prepare it” and it’s hard to resist at least cracking it open for a perusal.
With Lent starting and our annual attempt to honor the Catholic Church mandate for meat abstinence on Fridays, I had an extra incentive to mull the menus. At just about 600 pages, I’ll admit I didn’t do a whole lot of mulling, but then I didn’t really have to. Flipping to the most obvious chapter for a complete meal — “One Dish Dinners” —I found the very first recipe appealing.
It’s a big combo of flavors: Potatoes, white (I used cannelloni) beans, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), onions, garlic, oregano, wine, tomatoes, olives, capers and cheese if you want it. It can be done with mostly canned ingredients you likely have in your pantry (if you cook much). And it has the bonus of being easily adapted to any taste and circumstance.
For example, it calls for new potatoes. I had an aging bag of Gold potatoes, and just washed and cut them up to reasonable chunks (no need to peel since the skins are so thin). It calls for fresh or canned tomatoes, which we almost always have on hand (for pizza sauce, among other things). I used two cans flavored with basil, garlic and oregano, but you can change the final taste with plain tomatoes or any other seasoned ones.
Like some heat? Find a can of diced tomatoes with chipotle, the kind I accidentally used the first time I made a Tuscan shrimp and beans recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. Want a saltier taste? Don’t rinse the capers (I usually do). Pick the cheese of your choice. We didn’t have feta handy, so I just added a few small pieces of cheddar. Regular readers know I added extra garlic. Heck, you can even add another protein like cooked chicken, ham or bacon.
We all really liked this. MT called it “divine,” her mom called it “great,” and despite the sizable quantity, it was gone in two sittings. My only note: while it calls for measuring the tomatoes, chickpeas, white beans and olives, I just used a can of each (two cans for the tomatoes). That worked fine.
Dobru chut!
Stewed beans with potatoes and olives (The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook, Diana Shaw)
6 new potatoes
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano, or 1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons dry white wine
2 cups fresh or canned chopped tomatoes
1½ cups cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1½ cups cooked white beans, drained and rinsed
8 oil cured black olives, pitted, or a combination of black and green olives
2 teaspoons capers
¼ to ⅓ cup crumbled feta cheese (optional
salt and pepper to taste.
In a large pot bring enough water to cover the potatoes to a boil. Add potatoes and gently simmer until just cooked through, about 10 minutes. Lift out with slotted spoon and let cool.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions, garlic and oregano. Reduce heat to medium and sauté until onions are soft and limp, about 8 minutes. Add the wine and sir until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Mix in tomatoes and cook, stirring often, until they start to thicken, about 5 minutes.
Add chickpeas, white beans, olives and capers. Cut potatoes into quarters and add them, too. Cover and continue cooking, stirring occassionally until sauce is very thick, about 10 minutes. Stir in feta, if using, and season with salt and pepper to your taste. You can also just serve it with salt and pepper on the table for diners to season as they like.
