Lunamoth

Some of the ingredients

In the last little while I have been gifted with food by two of my friends.  Karen gave me tomatoes and a cayenne pepper from her garden.  Elisabeth gave me tomatillas from the farmer’s market where she sells her fibre, yarn, and marvellous handmade mittens, among other things.

Inspiration struck, and this stew was the result:

Sniffle Stew (so called because both Frank and I had sniffly noses after eating it, and also because I think it would be great when you have a cold)

Action shot of the stew cooking -- what great colours!

3/4 to 1 lb pork tenderloin cut into 1″ cubes

3/4 lb tomatillas, quartered

1 large tomato, chopped coarsely

1 acorn squash, peeled and 1/2″ cubed

1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely diced

1/2 cayenne pepper, finely diced

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup chicken broth (I used instant powdered broth, oh horror)

And the spices: 1 tbsp paprika, 1 tbsp cumin, and some salt to taste.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a pot, and brown the pork tenderloin on all sides.  Add the squash, garlic and chicken broth and simmer for about ten minutes.  Add all the other ingredients and simmer about another ten minutes, until the tomatoes and tomatillas have made a sauce.  We have leftovers, so this amount should feed three to four people.

This would be lovely without the meat (and just use a little water or veggie broth for the liquid), so is perfectly adaptable to being a vegetarian meal.  Almost any meat can be substituted for the pork tenderloin, by the way — I think this would be especially good with chicken, and also yummy with stewing beef.

The meal got the Frank stamp of approval, so the leftovers won’t be cluttering up the fridge for any appreciable length of time….