Vegetable Stew or "Clean the fridge" stew

I will admit that sometimes when I go to the Farmers Market I become over excited by the wide variety
of fresh veggies that hit me from all sides. I tend to buy more than needed for a week..after all I am just little me..how much cauliflower can I possible eat a day? This is when veggie stew comes in to save the day. Not only is it tasty, but it cleans out the fridge to make room for the following Saturdays over buying excursion. Since I am often lax in fulfilling my iron needs daily, throwing in beans only makes this dish more healthy.
There a secret ingredient for this stew..it is a berbere spice mix. I found the mixture one of my favorite blogs: blog.fatfreevegan.com. It adds tons of flavor with healthy spices, which means you need less salt to give the dish taste..always a plus. I mistakenly added too much cayenne so my mixture has more of a punch, but it still worked...
Here is what I made, but really you do not have to follow it exactly..any veggies that you have will work well in this dish...

Ingredients for berbere spice mix: (this will make enough to last a very long time!)

1 Tbs. ground cardamom

1 Tbs. ground coriander

1 Tbs. fenugreek

1 Tbs. ground nutmeg

1 Tbs. ground cloves

1 Tbs. ground allspice

1 Tbs. cinnamon

1 Tbs. paprika

1 Tbs. turmeric

1 tsp. cayenne (use more to taste)

1 Tbs. ground black pepper

1 Tbs. ground sea salt (optional)

Stew Ingredients:

Cauliflower (Kimball Farm)

Green Beans (Kimball Farm)

Eggplant ((Kimball Farm)

Red potato (Kimball Farm)

Yellow Dal (Yellow split peas, a handful)

Lentils (a handful)

Mung beans (a handful)

Tomato (I used the freshly jarred ones shown in the previous blog!  If you have not jarred yours yet, use one can of crushed tomatoes.)

2 Garlic cloves (Kimball Farm)

Ginger (about 1 inch in size, chopped)

1/2 tsp oil

1tbs of Berbere mix

Super easy and not to much time needed to put this together.   

If you think ahead, put the beans in a container of water and let them soak over night.   I cooked them separate from the vegetables...I think it helped them to cook up faster..

Dice up veggies and place in a bowl.  Add the spice mix and toss together to coat the vegetables.  In a large stock pot, saute garlic and ginger in oil (few minutes).  Throw in all the veggies, tomato and about roughly 8-10 cups of water.  Let it cook down while the beans are cooking separately (~20 minutes).  Once the beans were soft, I mixed them into the vegetable mix and let them simmer for a few minutes..really simple. 

Look at the steam! Wonderful on a chilly night!

 This was dinner last night...for lunch I heated it up and added fat free plain greek yogurt.  It was a perfect addition and really cut some of the over heat from my cayenne pepper mistake!