Comfort Food of Peru

Again I grace you with yet another Peruvian delight; a comfort one at that. Due to my inability to tolerate dairy, I think I’m becoming addicted to peanut butter. Thank God I’m not allergic to nuts…knock on wood. I said that about dairy and look what happened. This morning took the cake. I had my usual bowl of cereal with blueberries and almond milk that I make from a powder purchased from the Asian Market. I enjoyed it but suddenly started to get stomach pains and very tired. I look at my cereal - nothing. I’m sitting there wondering when I go to my milk powder and there - dried milk. Son of a..

So now I depressingly return to buying rice and almond milk. This, unfortunately, has me slightly worried because I know these milks are hard to come by in local supermarkets. I shouldn’t drink soy milk, I can’t tolerate normal milk, and I can’t use my milk powder..ARG. What’s left? I guess I have to browse the market there in Concord to see what I have available. I don’t even know if I could get coconut milk so..I guess..juice and cereal? Or I can always melt peanut butter into water and have like..peanut cream..I..don’t know but I’ll eventually think of something. It’s not as if I’m being cut off from civilization entirely and I’m sure considering this day and age that all these “fandangle” ingredients are available. / end of rant

If you’ve noticed in my Peru designated recipes, I use pimentos and annatto with cayenne on occasion. This is because I’m trying to mimic the aiji pepper, which isn’t readily available to the United States. I’m not about to online order a darn pepper just for a recipe. That’s like ordering almond milk over the internet; it’s not that necessary in my perception and I apologize if I offend anyone.

It was still a darn delicious and scrumptious stew, thank you very much! Presented on my pretty new dish at that.

Oh and a final note, considering I use low sodium peanut butter, I added a lot more salt throughout the recipe. If you know that your peanut butter or other nut butter is saltier adjust the quantities as necessary.

Carapulcra de Garbanzos (Garbanzo Bean Stew)
½ cup cooked chickpeas
3-4 oz pumpkin, diced into chunks
1 small onion, sliced thin
½ large tomato, diced
1 tbsp sweet pimentos
3 large mushrooms, coarsely chopped
¼ cup corn kernels
½ cup tomato sauce or 1 tbsp tomato paste + extra liquid
1 tbsp red wine
1 tbsp peanut butter


Garlic Flakes, crushed
Cumin
Ground Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Annatto
Salt
Pepper
Dash of Cayenne or hot sauce (optional)

Spray a pan with nonstick cooking spray or use a nonstick pan then sauté the onions until browned. Add the peppers and tomatoes with enough water to cover then lid and cook until the tomatoes break down. Once you’ve reached this point, add the garlic flakes, beans, cumin, salt and pepper. Cover and cook for ten minutes. Remove the lid, readjust the salt and peppers, then add cinnamon, pumpkin, mushrooms and cloves.

Cover once again and cook about five minutes. If the mushrooms secreted enough liquid, don’t add any more. If not, add more then stir in the tomato paste, corn, peanut butter, and wine. Let this cook uncovered for about five more minutes or until it’s a thick consistency. Once this is reached, take the pot or deep pan off the heat, cover and let rest for ten minutes - if you can; I did astonishingly.

Serve along side a mound of white rice.



Because I thought the turnout was so well, I have enough confidence to enter this into a Legume contest. Who doesn't love legumes? Gee, hope I'll still be able to eat them if I can't eat other things..Sometimes when I eat an apple, I think it bothers me. Oh well; C'est la vi.