Black Bean Sweet Potato Stew and Rosemary-Thyme Bread

For my inaugural dinner, I chose to do something delicious and hearty. Black bean sweet potato stew it is!

So this stew turned out to be more like a chili. I'm gonna list what I did here, but at the bottom I'm going to list what I'm gonna do differently next time to make it more stewish.

• Soak black beans for a few hours, rinse and drain before using
• Peel and chop sweet potatoes and bake for 30 minutes at 500 degrees til they're cooked, but not quite falling apart
• In a pot (I used my cast iron dutch oven) on the stove top, turn the eye onto medium-high heat with sweet potatoes, beans, and vegetable broth (to cover)
• Chop some cilantro and sautee some onion and throw it in. 
• Drain and add some canned tomatoes (I used tomatoes that that mom had canned. I also put the juice in another pot and reduce it)
• Add some chipotle, cumin, and sea salt #nomnomnom
• Dice some pineapple and add it
• Add a couple cans of tomato sauce 
• Cook it together til delicious ^_^

For the bread, I mixed some warm water and a couple spoonfuls of cane sugar, adding yeast and setting this mixture aside so that the yeast could proof. I then stirred together a teaspoon of salt, three cups bread flour, and some ground rosemary and thyme. I put these mixtures together, adding about 2-4 tablespoons of vegetable oil and about another quarter cup bread flour as I kneaded. Then I put the dough ball into a greased bowl and set aside to rise. After it doubled, I punched it down, formed a loaf, and put it on a greased cookie sheet to rise again. I baked it for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees. This recipe is *so good.* It's like a cloud in a crust. The original recipe is here.

Reflections:
Next time, I plan to not bake the sweet potatoes in advance. They'll be fine just cooking with the stew.
Also I plan to cook the beans before I add them to the stew.
I definitely want more of a tomatoey taste, so I plan to increase the amount of tomatoes/tomato sauce
Next time I want to reduce the amount of pineapple I use to sweeten it, adding some shredded carrots instead. I meant to add shredded carrots this time, but I forgot. XD


I'm so excited about the different soups I want to make! I'm still playing with the format of the blog, but I hope to make it more fun as it goes along. ^_^

Next up: Laura's Kabetori soup!