Roasted Veg Fish Stew Recipe

Tonight I concocted a stew that is worth sharing! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. Maybe I'll snap a shot of my leftovers tomorrow. We had fish and cabbage to use and I wanted to make the stew as anti-inflammatory as I could. Most of the ingredients were from our Terra Organics box.

Ingredients
2 Tilapia fillets (I got ours in a multi-pack from Costco)
1 small head organic red cabbage
1 long organic sweet potato (could substitute carrots or beets)
1/2 onion
1 head of garlic
5-6 cups of liquid (I used 3.5 cups of vegetable broth and some water)
Peeled and grated fresh organic ginger (I started with a chunk about the size of my thumb)
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric (less for those of you who can taste turmeric)
salt and pepper to taste

Turn on oven to 400 degrees. Slice sweet potato into 1/2 inch thick rounds, prepare garlic to roast (see great instructions here), cut off bottom of onion. Place them on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Cover onion and garlic with foil. Roast for about 30 minutes. While this is happening, you can leave the kitchen!

Pull pan out of oven and allow to cool a bit. Meanwhile, put liquid in large pot, add spices and ginger. Bring to boil, then lower heat, stirring regularly.  Chop cabbage and add to pot. Stir. Cut up onion into large chunks and add to pot. Squeeze out garlic and add to pot. Stir. Cut fish into larger than bite size pieces and add to pot. Look at the time. Cut sweet potato rounds into quarters and add to pot.  Serve after fish has been in the stew for 5 minutes or less. It cooks very quickly. You can add it frozen and it will still cook in less than 10 minutes in the hot liquid.

I'm not eating bread or dairy right now, so we had this stew as our main course. It would be lovely with a slice of bread and a dollop of sour cream on top. One of the lovely things about this stew is its dark color and rustic, hearty look. The roasted vegetables are sweet and the broth is spicy. You can taste the fish, but it isn't overwhelming.

Serves 4-5.
Prep and cook time, 50 minutes. Actual time in kitchen: 20 at most. I didn't even peel the sweet potatoes - the skins fell off in the soup and blended right in with the cabbage.

Rick paired the soup with Trio Vintners Mourvedre 2007 and it was a lovely choice. Against the spicy and sweet soup, the wine tasted light and sweet. Really nice.

Local Dinner (almost)

We have made it to the Proctor Farmers' Market once this year, so far, and picked up some pork from Cheryl The Pig Lady, along with some other yummy items. For dinner tonight, my sweet hubby grilled some of Cheryl's pork steaks and I picked some lettuce from the garden for a simple salad. I bought some lettuce, spinach, and kale starts from L'Arche last fall and the lettuce over-wintered really well. It is perfect for eating now. The kale and spinach is going to seed already though. I'm going to go ahead and let them flower since I've heard that the blossoms attract beneficial bugs. The only other items in the garden box, so far, are 6 pea plants, so there is no harm in leaving them in place until we get some other starts. Or maybe I'll get some seeds germinating soon. But, anyway, back to dinner! It was delicious and local, except for the organic basmati rice, which came all the way from India (gulp). I really crave plain basmati rice sometimes. The pork was lean and had great flavor. The steaks have bones, so I ended up eating mine by hand, just like my grandmother taught me. When you grow up on the farm in Pennsylvania, like she did, you learn to get every last bit of meat off that bone!


We paired our simple dinner with a Winter's Hill Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that Bill at Tacoma Wine Merchants recommended. It was a good price for a weeknight wine and it tastes, well, it is unique. In a good way, I think. It is pale, even for a pinot noir, but sweeter than I expected. Kind of tastes like a SweetTart, now that I think about it. I didn't get anything on the nose, but with all the pollen in the air right now, it isn't any wonder. It may taste better as it opens over the course of the evening; we probably should have opened it sooner and maybe decanted. But, honestly, for the price, it is pretty good.


This afternoon, we cleared a space on the sunny side of our garage and set up a shelf for some tomato plants in pots. Last year our tomatoes just didn't get enough sun, so we are trying a new spot, and using pots so that I can move them around to . I'm already looking forward to some plump, warm off the vine, tomatoes...in four months that is.