Three-Bean Morrocan Stew

As a member of Cooking Club of America, I get what are called "Food Now!" emails. They show up in my email once or twice a week. I'm not completely sure, but I think they are randomly selected recipes that were in previous copies of Cooking Pleasures. Regardless, as the subject implies, they are quick recipes.

When I got the Food Now! email highlighting this recipe, I figured I'd give it a spin. Rodney occasionally hints (ok, blatantly states) that maybe it would be better if we went vegetarian. We'd be less chubby, more healthy in general, etc. That's usually when I start screeching something along the lines of, "But we wouldn't get to eat meat!" I typically follow that up by making something with pork in it. So, this one was to accommodate Rodney's "I wanna be a vegetarian" moments. As it is loaded with yummy beans and spinach, how wrong would I be to make it?

Three-Bean Moroccan Stew

2 tsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1.5 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 (15-oz.) can garbanzo beans, drained, rinsed
1 (15-oz.) can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
1 (15-oz.) can black beans, drained, rinsed
1 (14.5-oz.) can diced tomatoes
2 (14-oz.) cans lower-sodium chicken broth
1 c golden raisins
1 (10-oz.) pkg. baby spinach

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat until hot. Cook onion 3 minutes or until softened, stirring frequently.

Stir in cumin, coriander and cinnamon.

Add all remaining ingredients except spinach; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in spinach; cook 3 minutes or just until wilted. (It barely fit in the 5-qt Dutch oven and I was worried at first, but it worked out. Check out the progression...)

 
 

That spinach-wilting bit is fast.

6 (1 1/2-cup servings)

Certainly cheap. Again, we had all the stuff on hand but the spinach. I'd guess I picked it up for $2. If you are wondering how in the heck we have so much stuff "on hand", let me explain by saying that

1. I like to buy in bulk (remember when I talked about EVOO?) and
2. I try a pretty wide variety of stuff. How would I have known that the golden raisins I'd picked up for a dessert would be an ingredient in a main course? I didn't. I'm just rollin' along and it just happens to work out.

As for flavor: Bland, with a capital B. It didn't taste bad, it just didn't really taste like much. The recipe could certainly handle some jazzing. The email did say that addition of cayenne pepper would add a bit of fiery flavor. That tid-bit should be included in the recipe rather than as a side-note. On the plus side, it is filling (which means we had 4 cups of the stuff leftover that I eventually fed to the garbage disposal*), fast (dinner was done in less than an hour) and I believe it went down ok for Rodney. I won't try this again unless I'm sick and just want something bland to sooth the throat. Even then I'll add the pepper.

*I already had enough stuff for the worms to eat and since we lack in fridge/freezer space, something had to go.

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