What words come to mind when you think of a hearty stew with beans and potatoes? Comfort food! As days get shorter and colder, we look for comfort food more often. So here’s one of great options when you are looking for hearty warming stew.

Ingredients:

Note before starting: I cook mad amounts of food so I have plenty for a few days so feel free to half all ingredients.

• 1 kg potatoes
• 500 g cooked or canned butter beans
• 200 g curly kale
• 500 g chestnut mushrooms (I also added a handful of shiitake mushrooms for taste and smell, but it’s not necessary)
• 1 large or 2 smaller onions
• Vegetable broth (optional) or olive oil, salt, pepper and a good mix of dried herbs
• Olive oil

Peel and cut potatoes into chunks. Wash curly kale, remove hard stems. Pour a couple of spoons of olive oil and massage kale for a couple of minutes to make it softer. Wash and slice mushrooms, peel and cut onion.

In a pot with a deep bottom cook onions for 10 minutes on a medium heat. Pour a few spoons of water so they don’t stick and stir. Top up onions with mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are soft.

Add potatoes, kale and broth or water. If you choose water, don’t forget to add some salt, pepper and maybe some dried herbs to season. Cook everything for 10-15 mins, then add last step – beans. I cooked my own beans and they could stand a bit more cooking so I added them earlier, but I you are using canned beans, definitely leave them until the end as they will break down otherwise.

Cook everything until potatoes are soft. If you are worried that stew has slightly too much liquid, it will all get absorbed as stew cools off.

Enjoy!