One of the most difficult things for me is finding time to plan a dinner menu for the week that consists of healthy, quick meals. I also prefer not to repeat the same week after week. I’m definitely not great at menu planning for healthy eating, but this recipe is AWESOME!!! It was especially delicious today with snow falling outside. Mmmmmmm. Thanks Rachael Ray for your Vegetable Stew (Giambotta) recipe!!!! I honestly have never been able to prepare one of Rachael’s 30 minute meals in 30 minutes, until this one!!!!! Rachael Ray to me is Julia Childs to Julie Powell, she really did get me excited about cooking a few years back. The analogy might be a bit exaggerated, but close. I have most of her cookbooks and LOVE them. Anyhow, I promised to share things that were helpful to me in my everyday life and this recipe is something that is helpful to me today.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus some to drizzle
- 1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
- 3 cloves garlic, 2 chopped, 1 whole cracked from skin
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 eggplant, chopped
- 1 zucchini, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- Salt and pepper
- 1 (28-ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes
- 1 cup stock, chicken or vegetable
- 1/2 cup torn or chopped basil (10 to 12 leaves)
- 4 (1-inch thick) slices whole-grain crusty bread
- 1/2 cup grated pecorino
Directions
Preheat broiler.
Heat a medium soup pot over medium heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, bay, chopped garlic and onions and let them sweat out while you prepare the rest of the veggies. Work next to the stove and drop as you chop, in order of longest cooking time: potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and bell pepper. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and add tomatoes and stock and cook 5 minutes more, to heat through. Turn heat off and stir in basil.
Char bread under broiler and rub with cracked garlic then drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil, top with cheese and pepper and return to the broiler for 30 seconds to brown cheese. Serve cheese whole-grain toast with bowls of vegetable stew.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/vegetable-stew-giambotta-recipe/index.html
I love Rachael Ray, I stayed up watching her last night! And I make vegetable stew all the time…..I eat it with rice (delish!)
I know, she’s great!!
I thought about putting some sort of pasta in the stew, rice would be yummy too!!! 