This chickpea and kale stew is the ideal nutrient dense comfort food to inhale after a day of wintery outdoor activity. Beans and greens are both hearty and healthy and will warm you from the inside up. In this recipe a portion of the chickpeas are blended to form a sauce so creamy that you will swear that a heel of parmesan has been bubbling away in it all day.

This chickpea stew can be easily converted to vegan simply by omitting the chorizo. The recipe makes for excellent leftovers and great lunches and freezes well.

After the creamy zucchini pasta recipe I was inundated with requests for more zucchini recipes. I heard your pain. I am also drowning in little green squashes so here is another zucchini recipe. This vegetable stew is a perfect way to use up that one zucchini you didn’t notice until it got so big you could use it to club intruders.

I love ratatouille, and secretly make it year round. This zucchini and tomato stew is very similar except it uses warm middle eastern herbs and spices, and salty feta cheese which should be slightly melty when you eat it. Serve it as a side dish to lamb, tossed with quinoa, or over pasta. If you serve it as a side dish, you may want to simmer it uncovered for a few more minutes to evaporate some of the juices.

I love baked beans because of their acidity and sweetness; that balance is also the key to a great recipe and the reason they pair so perfectly with hearty grilled meats like ribs.

Now, when you make baked beans don’t undercook the actual beans. Think texture. not bite.

Also, these beans are even better the next day, so make them ahead or throw them in the crockpot and forget them. Though unorthodox they also make a tasty meal when served over a batch of quinoa with a bit of sauteed greens.

The key ingredients here are the anise, ginger, cloves and cardamom. Don’t skip the step of charring the onion and ginger as they become nice and mellow that way. If you can’t find beef shank then any beef stew cut will do, I like the shank because of the marrow and gelatin you get from the bones. If you don’t serve the shank on the bone, scoop out the marrow and spread it on a bit of bread, it’s delicious. Just trust me on this one.

First, you will need to make a nice dark roux, which gives gumbo it’s nutty flavour. A roux is just melted butter and flour cooked together, which thickens and enriches soups and sauces. Usually in French cooking it is stirred until just golden, but for gumbo recipes you need to get it to a nice chocolatey brown.

Next, to make this chicken gumbo recipe you will need to teach your family to love okra. Okra is a green vegetable with a unique texture, it’s gumminess will dissolve into the stew and help to thicken it. If you haven’t ever eaten okra try roasting it, it’s delicious and will let you taste it on it’s own. There is also another okra recipe coming up later this week so buy double!

I’m obsessed but I think you get the idea. It is time to pass on this obsession with both fresh and dried mushrooms.

Dried mushrooms offer us home cooks lots of possibilities when the mushroom season is far away. They are cheaper than fresh and they produce a vegetarian broth which can be used to flavour soups and stews or hearty meat dishes like these braised short ribs. If you have never used dried mushrooms before, read this tutorial on how to use dried mushrooms.

This beef short rib recipe results in tender, melt in your mouth meat with an earthy pungency produced by cooking the ribs in the mushroom liquid. If it is mushroom season where you are, use less dried mushrooms and more fresh and simply saute the fresh mushrooms and stir them in at the end.

Pumpkin beer appears in stores every year at the end of September, and then it seems to disappear faster then I can chill my glasses. I always end up spending several hours driving around the city, chasing bottles which have been snagged just before I arrive.

This year, when I finally located myself a few bottles, I wanted to do more than just drink it. A good pumpkin beer has a subtle spice to it with echoes of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and ginger. This pork is stewed to be just as delicately spicy. Don’t forget to read up on how to make a great stew and save yourself a bottle of pumpkin beer to drink with it.

To complement yesterday’s tips about making great stews here is a stew recipe where I applied all of the tips to good results. A simple beef stew is a beautiful thing, browning the meat and onions well, building the beautiful caramelization on the bottom of the pan right into the sauce gives a deep meaty richness.

Stew is even better the next day and freezes beautifully. The next time I make this, I will certainly be doubling it. Don’t forget to check out my tips on making great stew.

When I was young, I was vegetarian and hated curry, which to me meant all Indian food. What a waste. Of all the diets in the world, the Indian culture contains some of the most varied vegetarian recipes.  Hinduism encourages a vegetarian lifestyle, and though it is left up to the individual, many Hindu’s are vegetarian. Today, throughout India and it’s many regional cuisines vegetarian dishes are frequent and varied.

I remember eating many fettucine alfredos in my vegetarian days.  Restaurant menus were always short on options and despite being a pasta addict, I was never enthusiastic about the gluey looking pastas I chowed down on.  Aromatics and spices like ginger, garlic, onions, cumin, coriander, turmeric and cardamom in Indian cooking make every dish taste unique. Mint, cilantro and fresh chilies fleck the dishes with hints of green. So different than those bland, plate-shaped fettucine dishes.

Now that I have embraced curry and other Indian flavours I am attempting to make some classic recipes, of which this Chana Masala, or Channa Masala, is one.  Chana, Hindi for chickpea, masala simply translates to chickpeas with a spicy mixture.  While researching this recipe I found the common ingredients to be chickpeas and tomatoes with generous amounts of garlic, ginger, onions, and garam masala.

So I urge you, if you are a vegetarian out there who is hesitant about curries, give this Chana Masala or chickpea curry recipe a try. Make it a feel meal and serve it with some sweet and sour okra. Just don’t use your spouse’s coffee grinder to make garam masala — they hate that.

This is the first time I have ever cooked with brined peppercorns and they really added a nice depth of flavour to the sauce. Expect to see a peppercorn sauce recipe soon. For the meat I used a combination of beef stew meet and short ribs. If you use bone-in short ribs, simply shred the beef and discard the bone and cartilage before transferring to the baking dish and topping with pastry.

The original recipe called for individual portions in a pot-pie type fashion, I chose an easier and more rustic presentation but it was still well received.

Stay tuned for St. Patrick’s Day when I have a lovely Irish Soda Bread recipe to serve with your stew. If you are looking for more beer and beef stew recipes, check out these Stout Braised Short Ribs .