By Ria Cox, keen family cook and food enthusiast.
This is one of my favourite winter dishes at the moment, it’s comfort food that won’t add a million calories – AND it makes your kitchen smell amazing! It’s both warming and soothing after a cold and busy day and everyone I serve it to loves it! It’s a simple yet impressive dish if you’re feeding lots of people, you just throw everything into a big pan and it virtually cooks itself. I like to make a huge pot and then freeze the leftovers for healthy ready-meals. Once cooled, it will freeze for a few months in microwave-ready tubs.
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 ¼ hours
Difficulty: 1 out of 5
Ingredients
- 800ml of chopped tomatoes (from cans, 2 of)
- 400ml reduced fat coconut milk (from can)
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 2 aubergines
- 1 large bag of spinach, roughly chopped or torn
- 400g chickpeas (from can)
- 4 tablespoons of tomato purée
- 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of turmeric
- 2 teaspoons of cumin
- 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I add 3 because I like it with a kick)
- 4 – 6 cloves of garlic (depending on how garlicky you like your flavours)
- bunch of fresh coriander
- brown rice or quinoa to serve
Method
- Chop the sweet potatoes into small chunks then steam them for about 15 minutes on your hob
- While they’re steaming chop the aubergine into small pieces
- Once the sweet potatoes have softened chuck the tomato purée, cider vinegar, garlic, spices and salt in a huge pot with a lug of olive oil or Frylight
- Cook on mid to high heat for a couple of minutes until they’re sizzling
- Reduce the heat and add the coconut milk, two tins of tomatoes, the chopped aubergine and sweet potato; add salt and pepper to taste, stir well and turn up the heat and cook until it’s boiling
- Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to simmer and cook for around 45 minutes, stirring occasionally
- This is the perfect time to tidy away and wash up or load the dishwasher
- After 45 minutes add the tin of chickpeas (drained) and spinach
- Let these cook, soften and wilt for 12 – 15 minutes
Presentation
- Finely chop or tear the coriander and scatter it on top
- Best served in a bowl with brown rice or quinoa
