Jeffrey's Sweet & Spiced Butter Bean Stew

Jeffrey’s Sweet & Spiced Butter Bean Stew

Jeffrey Boadi

Featuring:

Pulses

Tomato

Picture of Jeffrey Boadi's Sweet & Spiced Butter Bean Stew

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 2

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

75g red onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

170g red bell pepper, chopped

1 tbsp tomato paste

250g vine tomatoes, chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1 can (400g) butter beans, drained and rinsed

250ml vegetable stock

1 tsp maple syrup

Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

2 medium slices sourdough, to serve

1–2 basil leaves, torn, to garnish

This butter bean stew offers a great blend of savoury flavours from the spices and vegetables, complemented by the sweetness of maple syrup. Paired with toasted sourdough, you’ll love this dish for both its flavour and protein content.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas Mark 4.

Heat the olive oil in an oven-safe saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, sautéing for 3–4 minutes until soft. Stir in the bell pepper, tomatoes, tomato paste and spices Cook for 5 minutes, allowing the tomatoes to break down a little.

Stir in the beans and vegetable stock. Add in the maple syrup and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the stew has thickened.

Toast the sourdough. Remove the stew from the oven and garnish with basil leaves. Serve with a slice of toasted sourdough. Spoon the stew over the toasted bread or use it for dipping.

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

Serving

The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.

Jeffrey Boadi

Jeffrey Boadi is the author of Plant Fuel, and a plant-based nutrition expert focused on helping people build healthier, more energised lives through whole-food nutrition

www.jeffreyboadi.com/