Italian Vegetable Stew

Italian Vegetable Stew

Serving Size: 2 cups
Servings: 8-10 hearty servings
Prep Time: 1/2 hour
Cooking Time: 45 minutes

Serve with corn bread, pita bread, or unleavened bread.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup avocado oil
2 cups fresh green beans, cut in pieces
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 large yellow or zucchini squash, cut into 1 inch chunks
2 red bell peppers, cut into narrow strips
Optional: 1 large baking potato, pealed and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2 cloves of garlic, minced or chopped fine
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 cup fresh basil leaves
5 organic sun-dried tomatoes, soaked ahead for 1 hour
3 organic Roma tomatoes
5 organic vine ripe tomatoes, chopped in small pieces**
1 tsp Redmond Sea Salt
1 Tbs organic coconut sugar or cane sugar

** Alternative Ingredients:
Use 1 12-ounce can of stewed tomatoes instead of the vine ripe tomatoes, celery and sugar.
Use 1 6-ounce can of organic tomato paste instead of the roma tomatoes and sundried tomatoes.
*(but fresh is always tastier than canned!)

Prep Ahead:
Soak sundried tomatoes 1 hour ahead. Assemble, chop, cut the vegetables.

Making It:
1. Place the 7 vegetable ingredients into the large soup pot with oil. Sauté until tender.
2. Meanwhile, place the romas, sundried tomatoes and basil leaves in a food processor. Process until chunky and add to pot.
3. Chop the vine ripe tomatoes and add to pot with salt and sugar. Bring to boil, then cook on low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Alternative Cooking – Crock Pot Version
For Crock pot method, place all ingredients into crock pot and cook on high for 4 hours or all day on low.

Enjoy!
Marie