h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't really like to cook, so for me everything has to be easy and preferably it should fit into one pot - no more than two, in any case. I have given up meat only recently for ethical reasons - it is not really the killing of animals that bothers me the most, but the suffering they have to endure throughout their short life before they are slaughtered, so I believe I would eat meat if I knew the animal had a somehow happy life and was killed in a somewhat uncruel way. I know, it sounds ridiclous when I write this, but I am still wearing leathershoes, after all. Somehow I haven't figured out how to lead my life without harming innocent animals.



Anyway, here is my tip if you like it simple and tasty - and I hope its healthy as well:


Ingredients:

1 eggplant
1-2 zucchinis
3-4 carrots
1 sweetpotato
2 pepper
1 leek
1 big onion
mushrooms (I normally use field mushrooms or Shitake, which taste great but are quite expensive)
whatever spices you like - black and/or cayenne pepper, paprika, samba olek (this red, hot sauce), garlic
salt



Method:

Basically, just throw everything together and stew it. Okay, I usually take my wok, because it is the only pot I have that is big enough and easy to clean afterwards.

Cut everything in not too small pieces - the smaller you cut them, the mushier the endproduct will be, so it is up to you. Basically, you can do the cutting while you do the stewing, so start with those vegetable that take the longest before they are done.

Put your pot/pan/wok - anything big, because this adds up to quite a lot of vegetable - with a little bit of oil on low heat. To prevent burning and sticking on the bottom add water whenever necessary during the process, though not right at the beginning.

I would start with the carrots, as they take the longest time to get soft, and I was told they don't loose their vitamins if they are stewed for a long time. When they are getting a little softer, add the onion, and short after that the sweetpotato. After that the eggplant, followed by the zucchinis. Next come the mushrooms, and finally add leek and pepper. These last two ingredients I would add pretty late, because otherwise they get too mushy.

When its all simmered through, add spices as you like.

Altogether this takes about one hour from cutting the first carrot and putting the wok on the fire until adding the last spices.

This is a great dish by itself, but next time I will probably also cook some rice to mix it in the end (thus I still only use two pots, so it is okay). In the end you have about 4-6 portions, and it is no problem to heat it up the next day. And it is also very open to variations, I only just recently added the sweetpotato myself.

I hope you like it, and if you have any suggestions to improve this, please tell me about it!


snowflake