This is a very quick and very easy dish to make – especially if you are on your own, as I am at the moment! In fact, for the majority of June ‘C’ will be out of town and it is never that much fun cooking for one – so I am sure you will see a lot of these ‘quick & easy’ recipes in the next few weeks.

The flavours in this stew is distinctly Indian, with generous amounts of cumin, garam masala and turmeric, which I think have to be my all time favourite spices. There is no meat in this stew but you really do not miss it as the flavours are so bold. I find this stew actually incredibly comforting.

You can serve it with naan bread or white rice (naturally my first choice) but I decided that today I was going to serve it with quinoa in order to be that much healthier. As it turns out – I am rubbish at making quinoa! Usually I leave the quinoa-making in the very capable hands of my Peruvian who makes it really fluffy and flavourful. Mine was far too salty and far too wet…but it’s all about trial and error, right?

Again these measurements are just guidelines – feel free to play with the spices according to your preferences. Also add what ever vegetables you have at hand – I could imagine that mushrooms would taste great in this as well!

This will yield two servings, one for dinner tonight, and one for lunch tomorrow.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 medium red onion diced
• 2 -3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Handful of runner beans, chopped
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 can of tomatoes (I only had a 200g box of tomato puree at home and that worked well!)
• 300g of canned bean (chickpeas, butter beans..whatever you fancy)
• 100g of spinach leaves

Directions

Heat the oil in a pot and fry the onions and garlic until they turn a golden brown colour. Throw in the runner beans and continue to fry for a few more minutes.

Then add the turmeric, garam masala and cumin over a low heat until everything is well coated. Do not worry if it burns slightly to the bottom of the pan, this will dissolve once you add in the tomatoes.

Add the canned tomatoes (or tomato puree in my case) and stir well. If you think that it is too thick add some more water. I added about ¾ of a cup. Taste and season if need be. As I used a box of tomato puree I found mine quite salty – but added a few dollops of honey and it really mellowed the salty-ness and brought out the flavours.

Add the beans and let simmer for 5 mins before you stir in the spinach to wilt. Once the spinach is wilted, turn off the heat and its ready to serve

Dinner will be on the table in 20 minutes – or rather on my knees in front of the telly while I watch some mindless program for a bit!