Black eyed bean stew and Spiced Pumpkin

notice the cute list of stuff? that comes later...

On Monday me and the mister had some really lovely friends of our over for dinner. My good lady friend Jayne calls herself one of them vegans. So I wanted to make something neat and tasty and special that hopefully involved black eyed peas/beans.

On the weekend we purchased this adorable culinary punkin' from our pals over at Lidl! It broke the bank at £1!  So on the Sunday before we cooked up some dried black eyed beans preparing for this amazing RECIPE!

So let's talk about recipe one :The Stew

I went to the supermarket to get all the buddies I needed to make this special meal. We didn't need too much,but unfortunately we lacked the amount of black eyed beans for this awesome stew.  Sadly I could get everything on that list above EXCEPT the black eyed peas!  But I did manage to get that glittery ass skull right there sweet potatoes and black "turtle"beans and A really good bottle of wine!

So what does a gal do with a serious lack of black eyed peas in her life? Improvise! So here is all the component of a really good Black Eyed Pea stew with some Borlotti beans thrown in there!

4 tbsp Peanut Oil
1 red pepper
1 large onion
2 large carrots
2 cloves garlic (not bulbs! don't know why I put TWO BULBS there!)
1tsp dried thyme
1tsp paprika
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 cups veg stock
2 400g/14 oz cans of black eyed peas (or borlotti or something)

Here's the part where you expect pictures. Here's also the part where I tell you I only got pictures of cutting up the punkin cause it got dark real quick like and the pictures woulda looked crap. 

Method:

Cut all that business up. Then you are gonna saute' the crap outta all that business,well all of it but them beans, in that peanut oil. After 5 minutes you needa pour up that good stock and let that puppy start boiling. After it starts to bubblin' add the beans and let it hang out for 15 minutes or until they are super duper tender! Season it with salt and pepper AND Tabasco (if ya nasty!)

Now onto the Spiced Pumpkin.

yeah you kinda don't need those carrots

Okay here it is Cute and Delicious stuffs to make that punkin'all spicy like

1 culinary punkin' (these are smaller obviously!)
3 red and beautiful tomatoes. these are from a green house in the back yard of my mother in law. they are better than the shit you are gonna get in the super market. (jus' sayin') Skin and chop those pups.
not those carrots
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1tsp cinammon
2 tsps curry powder
pinch of nutmeg
1 1/2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

Now you need to chop him up! I find it's easy to cut the skin off a punkin with a vegetable peeler! You don't waste much punkins that way!

Method:

Melt the margarine in the sauce pan.  Now when that's all melty and right you need to add all those ingredients together and stir 'em and let 'em simmer for 15 minutes or until the punkin is soft!

You are ready to plate up that pup!

The recipe said to plate the stew on one side and the pumpkin on the other with some rice. But there isn't really any point cause you are gonna mix 'em together and they are gonna taste mighty fine!  I mean look at Jayne!

This meal is so easy and so delicious. Seriously ,the only pain is the pumpkin! Hope you guys have a great weekend! And if you are in England get your punkins now! Those bastards ain't gonna be around too long! 

Seriously most Halloween meal eva! (sorta)

 p.s. the hubs had it for lunch the next day and said it was MUCH better with cous-cous! I'll be the judge of that! :)

Print  recipe here!