Prison Food

When I first made this peanut stew- recipe found here - I posted about it on FB. Just an offhanded reference in a status update about my day, and how I was excited to try a new recipe after a friend recommended this fabulous site. My father commented and said "Peanut stew? That sounds like prison food, haha". You have to imagine the image he conjured up in his head- a bowl of thin, watery gruel with two sorry peanuts floating in it. I laughed out loud because I could hear his voice in my head as he was saying it. Rest assured, this is not just watery gruel with two peanuts floating in it. I have picture evidence that it was fabulous. As usual, I tweaked this recipe beyond recognition but the basic bones of it are the same.
If this is prison food, lock me up and throw away the key. Ok, not really. But it was very good.
I also made carrot rice following a recipe from the same site. I wasn't as excited about the rice, but I'm generally not a rice person, so it's just personal preference.
I liked the rice much more when it was mixed with the stew. These two went together very well, but I wasn't quite done yet. Since I had to peel and chop sweet potatoes for the stew I figured I'd go ahead and make sweet potato cornbread from scratch as well...
This recipe is from the cookbook How it All Vegan. You can see the flecks of mashed sweet potato dotted throughout the bread, and trust me they make all the difference. I use brown sugar when making this, because I find it complements the sweet potato really well. This is also a great breakfast bread, smeared with butter or a vegan substitute, and sprinkled with a little bit of cinnamon. This recipe is a close approximation of the one I used, and looks like it can be easily modified if needed. These usually make really good muffins as well, and as I've said before I find them *much* easier to store, transport, and freeze that way. Do check out Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes if you get a chance, she's never let me down so far and her recipes are fantastic.