Try eating delicious African stews to lose weight

Who would think that peanut butter would make a wonderful tasting and healthy soup for those without peanut allergies?  But a cup of peanut butter, a can of tomato paste, water, garlic, curry, turmeric, ginger, cumin and chili powder makes a broth so delicious with just a little bit of salt added that it will make you want to slap your self.  Add chopped chicken and the vegetables of your choice and it’s on and popping.

Peanut butter is just one of the ingredients in some of Mother Africa’s delicious and healthy recipes.  Yams or sweet potatoes with the same or slightly different spices and ingredients as the sweet potato soup is another “stew” variation on ingredients at every store and home in the USA.

The benefit of the African stews are in the ingredients.  All the spices and herbs have healing properties that boost the immune system and fight inflammation.  Using meat as a garnish to the stew instead of its main focus loads the body with the fiber from the vegetables.  The stews are easy to make and store for later eating.  They taste great without being overloaded with salt.

The internet is full of recipes for delicious African stews, vegetable, bean and rice dishes that are better for the body and offer a break from the routine of only eating sweet potato pies and candied yams with marshmallows.  

Here’s a delicious and healthy sweet potato soup recipe as a start.

2 tablespoons of granulated garlic
1 tablespoon of chilli powder – mild
1 tablespoon of curry
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of tumeric
1 teaspoon of ginger
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
3 tablespoons of honey

Chop the following into chunks.  Sweet potato, onion, celery, bell pepper, tomato.  Place in a soup pot and add two tablespoons of either canola oil or extra virgin olive oil.  Add one small can of tomato paste.  Two cans of the small tomato paste cans will add to the thickness and a sweeter flavor, and there’s only 20 milligrams of salt in each can.   Add about two quarts of water.   Add chopped red chili peppers.  Chicken is optional.

Stir everything together before you put it on the heat and taste it.  I like mine a little on the sweeter and hotter side with the honey, tomato paste and cayenne, and I like the stock to be a little thicker, so I add more tomato paste and honey.  I don’t want it sweet like sugar, but more of a pleasant undertone to it.

Let everything cook on medium heat for about 45 minutes to an hour or until the sweet potatoes are soft enough to eat without being mushy.  This is a really great meal over brown rice. 

 

Eric Jonathan Brewer

Cleveland's most influential journalist and East Cleveland's most successful mayor is an East Saint Louis, Illinois native whose father led the city's petition drive in 1969 to elect the first black mayor in 1971. Eric is an old-school investigative reporter whose 40-year body of editorial work has been demonstrably effective. No local journalist is feared or respected more.

Trained in newspaper publishing by the legendary Call & Post Publisher William Otis Walker in 1978 when it was the nation's 5th largest Black-owned publication, Eric has published and edited 13 local, regional and statewide publications across Ohio. Adding to his publishing and reporting resume is Eric's career in government. Eric served as the city's highest paid part-time Special Assistant to ex-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. He served as Chief of Staff to ex-East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor; and Chief of Communications to the late George James in his capacity as the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's first Black executive director. Eric was appointed to serve as a member of the state's Financial Planning & Supervision Commission to guide the East Cleveland school district out of fiscal emergency and $20 million deficit. Former U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told Eric in his D.C. office he was the only mayor in the nation simultaneously-managing a municipal block grant program. Eric wrote the city's $2.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant application. A HUD Inspector General audit of his management of the block grant program resulted in "zero" audit findings.

As a newspaper publisher, Eric has used his insider's detailed knowledge of government and his publications to lead the FBI and state prosecutors to investigations that resulted in criminal prosecutions of well-known elected officials in Ohio; and have helped realign Cleveland's political landscape with the defeat of candidates and issues he's exposed. Eric's stories led to the indictments of the late Governor George Voinovich's brother, Paul Voinovich of the V Group, and four associates. He asked the FBI to investigate the mayor he'd served as chief of staff for public corruption; and testified in three federal trials for the prosecution. He forced former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj to admit her investigations of police killings were fraudulent; and to issue notices to local police that her investigators would control police killing investigations. Eric's current work has resulted in Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo accepting the criminal complaint he guided an activist to file against 24 civil rights-violating police officers in the city he once led for operating without valid peace officer credentials. USA Today reporters picked up on Eric's police credentials reporting from his social media page and made it national.

Eric is the author of of his first book, "Fight Police License Plate Spying," which examines the FBI and local police misuse of the National Crime Information Center criminal records history database. An accomplished trumpet player and singer whose friendship with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops resulted in his singing the show's closing song, "Can't Help Myself": Curtis Sliwa of New York's Guardian Angels counts Eric among his founding chapter leaders from the early 1980's role as an Ohio organizer of over 300 volunteer crime fighters in Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown, Ohio. For his work as a young man Eric was recognized by Cleveland's Urban League as it's 1983 Young Man of the Year.

Known in Cleveland for his encyclopedic knowledge of government and history, and intimately-connected with the region's players, every local major media outlet in Cleveland has picked up on one of Eric's stories since 1979. There is no mainstream newspaper, television or radio outlet in Cleveland that does not include an interview with Eric Jonathan Brewer in its archives over the past 40 years.

Reply

Check out these stories too!