Italian Vegetable Stew

Your wish is my command.

The Italian Vegetable Stew that I made earlier this week with garden grown spinach, tomatoes, and zucchini was absolutely delicious.

Much better than standard vegetable stew. If you don't like zucchini or eggplant; don't worry because after the stew cooks for so long; the flavors blend wonderfully and you can't tell one thing from another. As you can see below, the only things still recognizable are the carrots and potatoes. I made a few substitutions based on what I had on hand.

Without further ado...I present the recipe (whatever is in '( )' are my notes):

4 garlic cloves (I used minced garlic)
1 small acorn squash diced (I used potatoes; they worked wonderfully)
1 red onion sliced
2 leeks sliced (used more onion)
1 eggplant sliced (without skin)
1 small celery root diced (used celery)
2 turnips sliced
2 plum tomatoes chopped (use chopped tomatoes that I canned from the summer garden)
1 carrot sliced
1 zucchini sliced (with skin)
2 red bell peppers
1 fennel bulb sliced (didn't have any; omitted)
6 oz swiss chard (used spinach!)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp chili powder
pinch thyme, oregano, sugar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
vegetable stock and water to nearly fill pan (used water and chicken boullion)

1 oz chopped basil leaves
4 tsp chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients -except the last 3- in a heavy bottom pan with a lid. Mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, then cover and simmer for 60 minutes or until vegetables (potatoes) are tender. Be sure it doesn't stick! Sprinkle in the remaining basil and parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Turns out that this post is now the first (original) post of my The Return of Squash series. Search post titles for 'The Return of Squash' to find the others....they are all interesting, sneaky ways to use squash.