Food is Activism: Megan’s Version of a Moroccan Vegetable Ragout

Megan is not vegan.  But she takes great care to make balanced meals with whole foods for her family. And many of those meals are now plant-based.  She enjoys trying out new cooking methods.  In fact, she appeared in a video with me where I taught her the basics of using the rice cooker and pressure cooker for beans and grains.  We get together for weekend workouts (either running or cycling) and we often swap containers of food so we can share what we’ve cooked up in the kitchen (last weekend she brought me a veggie soup that was phenomenal).

Megan is eating many meat-free meals and as a result so are her husband and daughter.  She is making delicious meals that they enjoy and they don’t miss the meat.  Food is activism.

This is one of Megan’s standby recipes.

Moroccan Vegetable Ragout
Adapted from Fine Cooking Magazine

INGREDIENTS

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Yellow onion diced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1.5 t ground cumin
• Peeled and diced sweet potatoes ( I used 3)
• Cooked chickpeas
• 1 cup filtered water (I used the liquid from my cooked beans as I had cooked them in the pressure cooker first)
• 1 can diced tomatoes and the juices
• 1/2 cup pitted green Greek or Italian olives
• 6 T orange juice
• 1.5 t brown rice syrup (in place of the honey in the original recipe)
• Kale – coarsely chopped

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oil in the uncovered pressure cooker and then cook the onion.
2. Add the cinnamon stick and the cumin and cook until fragrant, around 1 minute
3. Add sweet potatoes, chickpeas, tomatoes and their juices, olives and brown rice syrup and I cup bean liquid or water.
4. Close the pressure cooker and bring to high pressure.
5. Once at pressure, cook for 6 minutes.
6. Release pressure with a quick pressure release under cold water.
7. Remove the pressure cooker lid, away from you.
8. Add the kale and cook for a few minutes in the pressure cooker (uncovered)
9. Serve and enjoy!

Megan’s notes:

• The sweet potatoes don’t hold their shape as well cooking this way, but I loved it) and it was very easy to adapt this to be a vegan recipe.
• If you don’t use a pressure cooker, this can also be cooked in a slow cooker for 2 hours on low or 4 hours on high. Follow steps 1+2 on the stove top and then begin with step 3 in the slow cooker.

***

Thanks, Megan!

Are YOU a non-vegan reader? Are you making vegan meals?  Please submit a recipe, photo and tell me a little about what cooking vegan meals means to you.  You just might end up in the Food is Activism series!

Tags: food is activism

• Next Black-Eyed Pea & Collard Green Chili
• Previous A return to Blossom NYC