Vegetable Stew

And once again, the trees are laden in pollen. I always forget the midwinter episodes of crippling allergies. Since I feel like I have the flu due to tree pollen, I figured I should make some gentle stew so I'm still getting some nutrition while eating is hard.

This recipe should be adapted to whatever is in your house that needs to be used up. I went through my produce bin and found a lot of "half of this, half of that" in there. Those all feature here. Whenever I'm feeling under the weather, the stews tend to be comprised of whatever I was able to easily forage from the fridge, pantry, freezer, and/or garden with a minimum of effort. This should serve 4 people on its own, but if you put it over rice, pasta, or similar, you can stretch it to 6 or so people. Hope you enjoy!

In a 2-quart saucepan, combine the following:

1 tablespoon each: sesame and veg oil
1 cup beet stems, chopped into 1" pieces (I pre-chop these when I buy the bunch of beets, since I always use them at roughly the same size)
1/2 carrot, diced
1 medium potato, diced
1/2 shallot, sliced
1 small yellow bell pepper (I mean the tiny ones, not a small version of the regular sized ones - if that's what you've got, use 1/4 of the pepper), diced
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cumin
3/4 cup ukha kraut

Fry this up for a while, until it looks like this:

then add:

5 whole cloves of garlic
1 cup-ish cooked beans (I used giant limas; you use what needs to get used up)

Wrap together in a tea ball, enclosed strainer, or cloth, then add:

1 teaspoon coriander seed (whole)
2-3 pieces of turmeric root (whole)

And lastly, add enough water or stock to cover plus 1/2-1", as per prior photo. Simmer this for about 45 minutes. Remove coriander and turmeric, then nom.