Baked Vegetable Stew

This past Saturday, I posted a recipe for Tomato Soup.  I thought it was kind of ironic that I posted this soup recipe on a day that it was 60 degrees outside.  However, I figured it would be a good chance to get in at least one more soup recipe before the winter ends.  Well after this weekend, the temperatures haven't been that warm and have been quite windy.  I don't think we even got into the 50s (maybe just on Monday).

I guess I had been wishing for warmer weather a little too early, especially now that we have an extra hour of daylight.  But since we are not quite to that warm weather yet and we still have 5 more days until the first day of Spring! I am going to post one more stew recipe I enjoyed this winter.  This recipe was super easy to make and would make a great last comfort meal to celebrate the end of winter.

This recipe was adapted from here:

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 potatoes, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 vegetable stock cube dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
• 3 cups petite peas, frozen
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cups water, divided
• pinch of paprika
• salt, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan.  Add onion and saute for about one minute.
2. Add the rest of the veggies and lower heat, stirring about every minute.
3. Mix in the remaining ingredients, except for the water.
4. Cover and allow to cook for about 5 minutes, stirring about every minute.
5. Add half the water (one cup), lower the temperature, and allow to cook for 30 minutes.
6. Add the other half the water and stir.
7. Pour mixture into a large baking dish.  Bake in oven at 200F for about an hour, or until the potatoes are soft.

One thing I really like about this recipe is you can easily swap the peas and carrots for different veggies if you would prefer.  Or maybe even add extra veggies like some corn!

I am roughly estimating this recipe makes 4 entree servings.  However, this recipe can also be made into 8 smaller side dish servings.

One entree serving yields approximately 306 calories and 11g protein.