Allotment Veggie Hotpot

We recently celebrated Halloween at the allotment with some cool rain (most fitting to conclude the season) but some sustaining warm fare. Despite the weather we cosied up round the wood burner in the community hut. There were two sorts of hotpot - the obligatory for this part of the world Scouse, as well as a delicious vegetarian hotpot, ensuring that everybody was catered for. This was washed down with copious amounts of tea or coffee and a desert of a chunky slab of parkin - mmmmmmm! As we have been trying to eat less meat this year I've since cooked the vegetarian hotpot a couple of times at home. Here is the recipe ~

Winter Veggie Hotpot

Oil
A few garlic cloves crushed
A chopped onion
Any winter vegetables (except for swede which is too strong) parsnip, turnip, sweet potato, carrots, squash etc chopped into bite size pieces.
½ tsp ground cinnamon,1 tsp cumin seeds, ½ tsp ground ginger
1 tin chickpeas
1 tin chopped tomatoes
A handful of prunes
A handful of raisins
A glug of tomato ketchup
Water/stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Fry onion & garlic for a few seconds, add chopped up vegetables, fry, add spices, fry, add chickpeas, tomatoes, prunes, raisins, ketchup, salt and pepper, water/stock to cover, bring to boil, simmer until the vegetables are just cooked (20 mins approx)

Serve with cous cous, garlic bread or potatoes.

This is the recipe as it was given to me so I had to work amounts to suit the two off us. I have since cooked a couple of times making some minor adjustments. I'm not that partial to cumin so reduced the amount to just ½ teaspoon. I included a couple of sticks of celery and the second time I tried it I used red kidney beans instead of chick peas. I like these sorts of recipes as you can fine tune according to your own taste, what you have a glut of or to accommodate left - overs. I also found that it took longer than twenty minutes to cook, as I made enough to do us for lunch the following day. It's reasonably cheap to make as well as being nutritious and I think that we will be eating variations on this theme regularly over the coming months.