kickoff Slow Cooker Recipe: Curried Vegetable and Chickpea Stew Perfect for clearing out a fridge full of veggies by Emma C. | kitchn

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Chickpeas, aka Garbanzo beans

famous mid-east dish hummus

Clearing out the canned vege-table shelf

To make this work, you'll need a large storage container (but small enough to fit in fridge). Open your need-to-use-before-best-by-date veggie cans (one at a time). Put in blender. You'll need to add water, of course.

Fresh veggies may be treated the same way, but it's safer to add some powdered Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid crystals) to help preserve freshness. (This same trick works great for fruit, even bananas. Resulting slushie will last fresh for weeks, but it's tart 1.)

Back to our canned soup dish... fill up your fridge container, with maybe 4 to 7 cans of blenderized stuff, like sweet corn (maize), sliced potatoes, carrots, yams, beets, squash, green beans, other beans, peas, lentils, mustard or collard greens, etc.. Canned fruit (eg. applesauce, tomato sauce) can be added as well, no blender treatment necessary.

tomato is a veggie, AND a fruit

Beans are an especially appreciated ingredient. Dry beans may be used, but need cooked first (of course). But, cooking water may contain toxins. Toss it. As for rice or pasta, cooking water contains soluble nutrients. Save it. I suppose wheat flour or corn meal could be employed, but have not tried those. If you do, please advise us. (this para. edited Mar.15)

Important tip: add some salad dressing for umame (savory) flavor at cooking time... for a quick meal, heat-up servings in microwave, add spice. I like powdered garlic and chili pepper, tiny bit of salt.

Resulting mixture is soup, the blended flavors are always nicer than any one of the selections alone. If you are not enthusiastic about veggies, but want their nutritional value, adding meat or meat juices will help.

edit Mar.15 (beware the Ides) Any fresh produce can be used like canned, without adding preservative, if...
Recommendations for fresh: 1 cook first, 2 include cooking water (or oil), to save nutrients.

edit Apr.6 HUMan... Hellth of plant-food colors (anti-oxidant alternative-hypothesis)

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