North African Spicy Stew - a regular mouthful

Well, this is just plain embarrassing, my last post was more than a month ago. It is a combination of trying new recipes that just were no good, going on holiday to beautiful Namibia and a life that demands too much time! Yep, excuses galore.

As you can see, I made a little "cup" out of the polenta to contain the stew. A nice idea but rather too much effort...unless you want to impress someone special. I will do this stew with mashed potato next time...it's quite saucy and the polenta did not do the juice mopping up trick I needed it to do. However, I will add the polenta recipe for you and you decide what works.
The stew is tasty rather than spicy, there is just a lovely hint of spice, no heat.The stew itself is remarkably simple to cook.

                                    North African Spicy Stew
Serves 2

Polenta:
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup polenta
1/4t salt
1/2t tumeric
1T butter

Boil the water in a small saucepan with the salt and tumeric. Whisk in the polenta, turn heat down and cook, stirring, for at least 5 minutes or till polenta pulls away from the sides of the pot. Stir in butter and use immediately. 
To make little baskets, grease the mould of your choice, spoon the polenta in and with the back of an oiled teaspoon ease it up the sides. Bake for 5 minutes and allow to stand a few moments before removing and filling with stew.
I generally cook the polenta just before the stew is finished cooking...unless I am going to make the baskets, then you can do it well in advance and just bake before using.

Stew:
1T coconut oil (or oil)
15ml ground cumin
5ml ground coriander
5ml cinnamon
2 cloves garlic, chopped
100g green beans or mange tout, sliced into chunks
150g baby marrows, sliced
1/2 x 410g can chickpeas
1 x 410g can tomatoes
1/2 cup vegetable stock
salt and pepper
1t honey -optional

Heat the oil, add the spices and garlic and cook gently for 2 minutes. Mix in the veg and stir to coat. Add the remaining ingredients and cook till tender. Add more stock if it looks to dry...and remove lid if looks too runny!