This soup is as densely packed with protein and (healthy) fat as a vegan meal can be, hence the name famine stew—so donned by my coworkers.
Caloric stalwarts of the meal are peanut butter and tofu. The tofu is pureed, blended in and hidden from sight for tofu haters.

Sweet potatoes and tomatoes lend the orange hue, and chunks of bright bell peppers add a hint of fruit to this African-inspired dish. As with all of my meals, I tend to add more salt than what’s found in the original recipe, but the soup lacks oomph without enough sodium.

William and I love (love) this dish. It’s creamy and rich—maybe even luxurious if it weren’t so cheap to prepare. And when ladled over rice, it fills us more than sufficiently.

Where there’s hunger, I highly recommend famine stew.

Famine Stew
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 medium onions, diced
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
2 to 3 teaspoons coarse sea or kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups pureed tomatoes
5 cups vegetable stock
1 cup natural peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)
1 14-ounce block soft or silken tofu, drained
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
2 1/2 cups cooked rice

Instructions
In a large pot, heat oil on medium-high heat. Add onion, peppers, sweet potatoes, and ginger; cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic, cooking 3 minutes more. Stir in cayenne, 2 teaspoons salt, and black pepper. Cook for a minute more, and then add the pureed tomatoes, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pot. Pour in vegetable stock, bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until sweet potatoes are tender.

Add peanut butter to the pot, and stir until incorporated. Combine 2 cups (or more) of the soup and the tofu in a blender; puree until smooth. Pour the tofu mixture into the pot, and stir to combine. Taste and add more salt and cayenne as necessary.

Serve over rice, topped with sliced scallions.

Serves 8

Coming off of a football/tailgating/beer drinking weekend, William and I were (fairly) strict vegetarians last week. With a profound hankering for meat, we broke our veggie streak with a beautiful herb-roasted chicken. Not just any chicken. It’s the second time I’ve roasted a Pollo Buono chicken, available at Whole Foods. The humanely raised birds are tender, have plenty of fat (which comes in handy for roasting vegetables) and just plain taste better than the standard super market bird. Of course they cost more, too, but it’s worth it. 

Beneath the bird, I roasted a mixture of turnips (one of my all-time favorite vegetables), sweet potatoes and rutatbagas. I gave them a light toss in olive oil, but they insisted on soaking up chicken fat as they cooked. If you’re looking for a way to make vegetables decadent, this it is. 

William’s comments on the meal: “Why don’t we eat meat every night?” (So we’ll enjoy it this much when we do.) “There are people who don’t eat this well at Thanksgiving.” (Damn shame, isn’t it?)

We swabbed our plates with out fingers, ate chicken crispy chicken skin from the cutting board and saved leftover fat to work magic in another meal. I also used the roasted carcass to make a pot of chicken stock. Good work little bird.  

Herb Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables
3 tablespoons chopped mixed herbs (I used tarragon, sage, and rosemary) 
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon salt 
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 pounds root vegetables, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 3(ish)-pound chicken

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°. 

Combine herbs, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss the root vegetables with 1/3 of the olive oil  mixture, and place them in the bottom of a medium-sized roasting pan. Place roasting rack on top to the vegetables, and adjust their placement as necessary. 

Truss your chicken with kitchen twine—not a necessary step but one that makes for a more beautiful, evenly cooked bird. (Here’s a video how to on trussing a chicken.) Place the chicken, breast side down, on the roasting rack.

Place chicken in the oven, and bake for 20 minutes, until the under side of the bird is golden. Baste with a few spoonfuls of the olive oil mixture. Flip the bird so it’s breast side up, baste with more olive oil, and return to oven. Reduce heat to 350°. Bake chicken 40 to 50 minutes more, basting periodically with olive oil. When chicken is golden and the internal temperature reaches 165°, remove from oven. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes, and carve into 8 pieces. 

Serve with roasted vegetables. 

Serves 4

A meat and three is the classic Southern combo meal. But for years I’ve gone with the trinity of “vegetable” side dishes—which are likely to include meat for flavoring and/or  a non-vegetable but vegetarian side—and skipped the meat.

I make a these “no meat and three” meals a few times each month to connect with the flavors of my Southern upbringing. And last night’s dinner of turnip greens with apples, baked curried sweet potato fries and my Mom’s classic macaroni and cheese was one of my best of such undertakings.

I purchased the turnip greens and sweet potatoes this weekend at farmers’ market in Jacksonville, Fla., and I used a modified version of a turnip green recipe from Gourmet’s final issue, subbing tasso ham for ham hock and omitting the turnip root (just because I couldn’t find any). William and I loved the combination of bitter greens, sweet apples and smokey pork. 

I tossed the sweet potatoes in olive oil, sea salt and hot curry powder (for an unexpected kick) and roasted them alongside bubbling baking mac and cheese. My mother always spurned the instant Kraft variety and spoiled us instead with real milk, butter and cheddar. Her recipe is after the jump. A classic pairing for any Southern-style vegetable, it’s the rich, fattening meat replacement that I crave for our no meat and threes. 

Classic Macaroni and Cheese
1/2 pound macaroni noodles (2 cups uncooked)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Dash cayenne pepper
Dash fresh nutmeg
8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°. Butter a deep 9″ glass pie dish. 

Bring a large pot of salty water to a boil. Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain. 

Meanwhile, on medium heat, melt butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Add flour, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, whisking constantly. Pour in milk, and continue to stir, breaking up any lumps with the whisk. Still stirring, bring the thickened bèchamel to a boil, and cook 1 minute more. 

Remove the sauce from the heat, and stir in the salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg. Add a large handful of the cheese, and stir until it melts into the sauce. Add noodles to the sauce, and stir until combined. Pour macaroni and cheese mixture into the pie dish, top with remaining cheese, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until gold and bubbling. 

Serves 4 to 6

Hash browns are one of my favorite quick meals. But I usually opt for an unhealthy version bathed in cheese, ketchup and oozy egg yolk, among other trashy toppings. But last night I set out the make a healthy, fall-inspired hash brown—using sweet potatoes rather my regular yukon gold and topping the spuds with vegan chickpea stew instead of ketchup and eggs. 

To complement the sweetness of the potatoes, I seasoned the tomato-based stew with cinnamon, paprika and honey. I also added fresh cilantro and oregano for herby undertones. 

As the hash browns fried, the potatoes’ natural sugars caramelized—delivering crunch and deeper flavors than I expected. This meal offered us salty and sweet and herby and crisp and soft. What a mouthful. 

For next-day leftovers I slopped the chickpeas stew (whose flavor had improved overnight) onto a baked sweet potato instead of a day-old, soggy hash brown. Although it was missing the caramel crunch, the tuber and its partner stew still worked magic in my mouth. So for the calorie conscious and those averse to dirtying extra pots and pan, a baked sweet potato works (almost) as well with this this recipe. 

Sweet Potato Hash Browns with Chunky Chickpea Stew
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup finely diced onion
1/2 cup finely diced carrot
2 gloves garlic, minced 
2 teaspoons paprika
1 cinnamon stick
1 28-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups whole tomatoes with juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
2 pounds sweet potatoes (2 large)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°.

In a small pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and garlic, and cook 5 minutes, until onion begins to turn translucent. Add paprika and cinnamon stick, stir, and cook for 1 minute. Add chick peas, tomatoes, honey, salt, pepper, and herbs. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. As mixture cooks, break up tomatoes with the back of a spoon.

Meanwhile, peel and grate sweet potatoes. Squeeze excess moisture from the potatoes with an absorbent towel. In an 8-inch, non-stick skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of canola oil over medium-high. Add 1/4 of the sweet potato, and spread evenly in the pan. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the bottom begins to brown.  Flip the hashbrown, cooking another 3 minutes. Transfer hash brown to a baking pan lined with parchment paper and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with remaining sweet potato. 

To serve, sprinkle salt and pepper onto each hash brown and top with 1/4 of the chickpea stew. 

Serves 4

Since we’ve converted to our almost vegetarian diet, I’ve discovered a true love of  rice and beans. Living in Cuban country probably has influenced our diet in this regard, as well.

I’ve made this Jamaican Red Bean recipe straight from words of Maddur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian cookbook at least twice. But last week, I researched Jamaican “peas and rice” recipes and made a few adjustments.

For this batch, I added grated sweet potato for extra sweetness, color and vitamin A. And I chopped up scotch bonnet peppers (rather than cooking them whole and removing them before serving) for the heat I have come to expect from Jamaican foods.

A big serving of these beans constitutes a meal for me (three this week, in fact), but they would make a mean side dish for jerk chicken or pork. 

Jamaican Red Beans 
1 pound kidney beans
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
1 teaspoon allspice
1 large onion, diced
1 bunch scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
2 scotch bonnet peppers, chopped
1 small sweet potato, peeled and grated (or diced if you prefer)
4 sprigs thyme

Instructions
Rinse beans in a colander. In a large bowl, cover beans with water and soak overnight. Drain beans, and pour into a 4-quart pot with 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil, and add salt. Reduce heat, cover, and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Beans should be tender but not soft.

Stir in coconut milk, allspice, onion, scallions, scotch bonnets, sweet potato, and thyme. Cook beans uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove thyme sprigs. Taste, and adjust salt, if necessary. Serve over white rice. 

Serves 8