Moroccan Root Vegetable Tagine - A BBC Original

Veggies make me happy.

You need to make this. Right now.

Ok, it’s 10:30 at night, so maybe not tonight, but you need to make it soon.

Will you please make it for me? I’m so very tired of eating in restaurants. I just want a homemade salad, or a happy pot of vegan stew, something with veggies that aren’t covered in butter.

Right now I’m entering my 4^th night in a row of less than 5 hours of sleep, my goal tomorrow is to not have to utter the words “Dear lord, fill my coffee cup again, I might die.” Wish me luck.

OK, because I want to get to blissful sleep, here is my current favourite stew recipe:

And! For those of you who are leery of the word "vegan" or "vegetarian", please don't be alarmed, this recipe is beyond awesome and there is nothing tofu-esque about it. You won't even miss the meat! (Ok, I know that's a standard line, and usually I respond "I'll have a side of bacon with that", but take my word, my bacon-loving word.)

Don't turnip your nose at these veggies. (...groan)

Vegan Moroccan Root Vegetable Tagine (That only happens to be vegan by chance)

A BBC Original

Serves 6-8 if served with couscous or quinoa (makes lots of lunches)

Ingredients:

• 2 lemons, sliced (peel and all)
• 2-3 tbs Ras El Hanout (Moroccan Spice Blend) – If you can’t find it, you can make it from this recipe
• Hot Chili Powder (Or regular chilli powder and some cayenne)
• Olive Oil
• 3 regular-sized cooking onions, sliced into half lengths
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped finely
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 very large sweet potato (or two regular sized ones, think lots!)
• 4 small turnips (the little red ones, if you can’t find these, you can use a regular turnip, or add more parsnips, or whatever your favourite root veggie is) 
• 3 parsnips
• 5 carrots
• 1 red pepper
• **note – chop all of your veggies into a medium dice, whatever you’re comfortable with and like, just make sure they’re all roughly the same size.
• 1/3 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (in olive oil)
• 1 can of chopped tomatoes
• Water (to cover)
• 1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• Salt/Pepper
• 1 can of chickpeas (optional protein)
• Mint and cilantro to serve
• Couscous (for the side)

This recipe makes enough for a ton of meals, so prepare for freezing by buying containers when you do your groceries. Your lunches will thank me.

Basically the key to this is to prep all of your veggies before-hand. Get everything chopped and set aside so that you can make the stew.

Start by heating a large pot (the biggest one you have probably) and adding some olive oil to heat up, then add your spice blend and chilli powder and mix with the oil until it starts to smell (probably less than 30 seconds if your pan and oil are hot).  Mix the onions in with the spicy oil and sweat until soft (About 4-5 minutes).

Next, add your garlic and tomato paste and stir and bash everything around with a wooden spoon for about 30 seconds (until the tomato paste gets a little darker and everything is combined). This little step takes the bitterness out of your tomato paste!

Next, add your lemons and all of the remaining veggies and work hard to make sure they’re all coated with the yummy onions and spice. Give them a few minutes to take on a bit of the heat, and then add the sun-dried tomatoes, can of tomatoes and apricots, top the mix up with water until everything is covered (But not swimming like a soup, just covered, you can always add more liquid later if you need to).

Bring it up to a simmer and cook for about 30-45 minutes (depending on the size of your veggie chunks). Check them for doneness near the end so that you don’t get mush or break a tooth.

The almonds and chickpeas can be added when the stew is juuuuuust about cooked (estimate 5 minutes or so from going on the plate). At this point you should taste it to see if it needs salt and pepper (most likely it needs a whack of salt, hit it hard, there are a lot of starchy, yummy things in there).

Fresh herbs make all of the difference. If you added these, plus some green onions to plain yogurt, it would make a nice addition to the stew (if you like that sorta thing)

If you’re serving it straight away, you can add a mix of chopped mint and cilantro to the top (parsley is good too here). If you’re freezing, you can stir it in, but the greens will turn dark in the freezer. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad and they won’t ruin the taste (quite the opposite actually); so, have no fear, pop them in there and enjoy a delicious, albeit, slightly uglier lunch.

This stew with some quinoa or couscous is the perfect winter meal (in my opinion); so warm and comforting, it makes the snow cap on my heart melt a little. You can make a batch of quinoa up at the beginning of the week and keep it in a jar. Just simply scoop some out when you want/need it and heat it up with your lunch. If you have a kettle at work, you can make couscous in a container in less than 5 minutes (fresh, hot and fluffy!).  

Hope you enjoy it, I’m jealous .

Much love,

-BBC

P.S. At a dinner party, you could serve this with roast lamb, couscous and flatbreads. It's great if there are vegetarians coming too, because it's a meal on it's own.