100 Days of Cookbooks: West African Stew

West African Stew from Well Fed 2

Rating overall: 4

Taste: 4.5

Ease: 4

Appearance: 4

This stew was so, so, so, so, so good!

I make doro wat stew and I was wondering if it would come out similar. It was still thick and hearty, but the sunflower seed butter gave it a completely different taste. It was easy to make and didn’t call for unusual ingredients (unless you count the sunflower seed butter, which I’ve seen at various supermarkets).

A few things about this recipe:

Quadruple it. I doubled the recipe and we finished the whole thing. Yes, I know Chris eats for 4-6 people, but still—make more! You can’t go wrong if you have leftovers for the next day either.
I changed a few things in this recipe. My mistake. I didn’t have fresh ginger or garlic, so I added the dry spice version. I thought the recipe said “diced tomatoes” so I got fire roasted diced tomatoes. It actually called for crushed tomatoes. Personally, I like the extra chunk of it all. Finally, I didn’t add the vanilla. I couldn’t help but think of “America’s Worst Chefs” when chef Anne was yelling at the guy for adding vanilla in his chicken. So I omitted it.

I was really happy with this recipe and sent it out to a few of my friends. It was just so good! I ate it with stir-fried cabbage, which actually went quite well with it. Chris ate it with rice and it looked like a glorious curry.

On my first round of Whole30, I had made a few recipes from Well Fed the original cookbook. Everything I made was very delicious and I’m glad to see that Well Fed 2’s quality matches the first book. I have a few more recipes lined up from both of those books and I’m excited to try them.

This also marks day #2 of Whole30, my least favorite day of the challenge. As soon as a week goes by, everything is peachy keen with me, but for those first couple days…

Here I am already not eating gluten and processed sugar. No problem. Do I miss anything? Of course, but there’s always recipes that attempt to recreate whatever it is I’m missing. No worries.

Go Whole30 and take away things like rice, honey/maple syrup, and foods that are reminiscent of sugary goodness—all the sudden my body and mind start revolting. How dare you take away these goodies! AHHHHHH! Go figure.

Like I said, give me a week. The second day is always the hardest for me. My mind tells me I’m only a day in, so what harm would it be to have that gluten free cookie and start over tomorrow? Terrible logic. After a week, I tell myself I’m a quarter of the way done, so I can’t go back now. I can’t.

Here’s my problem for this weekend—remember that strawberry festival that I thought was last Sunday? Oh yeah, it’s this upcoming Sunday. I am just going to have to suck it up, and enjoy the inspiration the sight of the foods give me. And I’ll watch Chris eat everything in sight and will live vicariously through him. Just kidding. Maybe.