Lunch Stews

I like bringing my lunch to work to eat healthy and be thrifty, but I don’t like making my lunch in the morning because I feel rushed for time.

The last couple weeks I’ve tried making a stew on the weekend and eating it for my lunches and that’s worked great. I made a Moroccan veggie stew, which was pretty good, and chili, which was awesome.

For this week’s lunches I made a veggie stew inspired by these online recipes.

I sauteed in olive oil:

• 1 yellow onion
• 3 carrots, sliced
• 3 celery stalks, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced

added these spices:

• 2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ceylon (lighter flavor) cinnamon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 4 cardamom pods, ground
• 1/4 tsp cayenne

sauteed for a minute, added:

• 28oz can diced tomatoes
• 15oz can coconut milk
• 1 quart veggie broth

brought to a boil, added:

• 1 cup red lentils

reduced heat to simmer, simmered 10 minutes, added:

• 2 pac choi, chopped up

simmered 10 minutes, added:

• 2 cups baby kale

simmered 5 minutes, adjusted salt, and done.

It turned out great! Coconut milk makes things delicious :) I also like that stews are flexible enough that I can add in whatever leftover veggies I have (pac choi and kale this time).