African Peanut Stew

A simple and calorie-packed meal

I periodically make this dish at home, and it’s my youngest son’s all-time favorite dinner. And it wasn’t terribly difficult to adapt the recipe to something more trail-friendly. It requires several small “fresh” ingredients but everything else about it is easy. The original recipe is unusual in that it calls for no spices whatsoever, but I feel like it’s better with a little bit of heat.

You can eat it like a stew, or serve it over rice or couscous. It pairs exceptionally well with my Pelau Rice.

The recipe below will feed 2 hikers, possibly 3 if you extend it with rice.

INGREDIENTS:

4-5 oz. freeze-dried beef chunks in small ziploc

1 small onion

3 cloves garlic

1 1/2 oz. dehydrated tomato dices in small ziploc

1 1/2 CUPS dehydrated butternut squash in ziploc

1 packet of ghee or olive oil

3 oz. Amore tomato paste

5 packets of Justin’s natural peanut butter

1 packet of Chao Thai coconut milk powder

1 mini ziploc with 1/2-1 tsp of powdered chili pepper (I use equal parts Anaheim, Pasilla and New Mexico chile powder, but you can use whatever you like, or simply a packet of your favorite hot sauce)

4 cubes of Knorr vegetable bullion

DIRECTIONS:

Add enough water to the beef, tomato and squash ziplocs to largely rehydrate them.

Dice and saute the onion and garlic and ghee.

Lower heat, and then add 3 cups of water and up the heat.

Stir in the Chao Thai and peanut butter. Stir until completely blended in.

Add the bullion cubes and tomato paste, again stirring until well-mixed.

Add the meat, tomato dices and butternut squash along with the chile powder.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Serve over rice or couscous, or eat it plain out of the pot like any stew. If you serve it with rice it might look like this:

I think you guys will REALLY enjoy this dish. It’s got protein, lots of good fat calories from the coconut milk and peanut butter, as well as tangy vegetables. In other words, it’s got all the food bases covered. When I made this at Garden Mountain Hostel, Hippie yogi’d what Mule and I couldn’t finish and declared it to be groovy.