Baked Bean Stew

Did you know that Aldi.com has recipes now? I discovered this little gem about a year or two ago while searching for budget recipes. Supposedly you can find all the ingredients for the recipes at your local Aldi grocer. I've yet to see any Aldi in my area carry lamb at any point in the year, but I have to assume that maybe some of them do. You don't have to sign up to search the recipes, but to save the recipes to your cook book or use their grocery list function, a free registration is required.

At any rate, this recipe is an Aldi original (as opposed to a reader submitted recipe) that has been sitting in my "cookbook" for several months.They say good things come to those who wait, so let's get started!

Baked Bean Stew

• 1 cup onions
• 1 cup green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into .5 in. pieces
• 2 cans baked beans, or canned pork and beans
• 1 can (15 oz) garbanzo beans, or black-eyed beans, drained and rinsed
• 14-1/2 oz tomatoes, diced, with roasted garlic, undrained
• 3/4 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp cumin seed

Directions

1.  Sauté onion and green pepper in oil in large saucepan until tender, 3-4 minutes.
2. Add chicken and cook over medium heat until browned, 3-4 minutes.
3. Add beans, tomatoes, and herbs to saucepan; heat to boiling.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 8-10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Akari's Musings















I pretty much had everything that I needed for this recipe.Aldi didn't have roasted garlic diced tomatoes, so I just threw in a tablespoon of minced garlic from the jar while my veggies were cooking. I could have sworn I had cumin seeds, but what I had was coriander, so I left it out. I went with a can of black beans instead of chickpeas or black eyed peas. I do not like chick peas except when they are pureed into hummus and black eyed peas are only eaten on New Years. Black beans have a better texture to me than the others, and they're pretty dang tasty. Why yes, that IS my Slap Chop(c). It's the only way to chop onions. SO awesome.











My pepper was getting a little old; I almost didn't put it in. It was only wrinkly a little bit and still had a pretty good flavor so in it went. I love my Slap Chop. It's great for onions, not so much for mushrooms. I usually cut the onion in half and then each half into fourths. I Slap Chopped 1-2 wedges at a time into a pretty small dice. While I was waiting for the oil to heat up, I opened up my black beans and got them rinsed.










Ha, I cleaned my stove! While the veggies were merrily sauteing away, I cut up my chicken. Holy crap, do I need a third chef's knife. I had to cut up the chicken with some random knife from the knife block. It was dull-ish and stupid. It got the job done, so I guess all wasn't in vain. This particular skillet is thinner than the rest of my cookware and things tend to stick to the bottom so I added a little bit more oil and tossed in a little white wine vinegar for some added liquid.









After adding in the chicken, I added about a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. You can see the garlic in this picture really well! I let this cook for about 5-6 minutes, stirring frequently, until the chicken was nice and brown. I think next time, I'll remove the veggies while the chicken cooks. I think the onions got a little too done in my opinion.








Once the chicken was browned, I dumped in the tomatoes, baked and black beans. I sprinkled the sage over the top as well as a little garlic powder, just for extra kicks. I gave every thing a good stir and noticed there really wasn't that much liquid in the pan. I shot a couple table spoons of ketchup in there and about a 1/4 cup water. This helped tremendously. The ketchup added a touch of sweetness and the water kept things from sticking.







11 minutes later, I had a delicious smelling stew that looked amazing. I dished it up into two bowls and served it with buttered Italian bread and monster glasses of strawberry Kool-Aid.

To be honest, I wasn't sold on this recipe. James loved it. I personally think there was too much sage in it. And I'm totally falling out of love with green peppers. They taste bitter to me now. Because James loved it so much, I'll file it away in the will make again pile, but it won't be for awhile. Other than the sage, it was pretty tasty.

I give it The Akari Hoshi Stamp of Approval, but hesitantly and only lightly.

~Akari~