This is one of those dishes that is never quite the same from one time to the next, but usually follows the same pattern. I got the ifea from my friend Josie when she visited in 2018. She would make a single serving at a time using a little cabbage and sweet potato and avocado, and just keep cooking more each day till she had used up the rest of the veg. I prefer to make a much bigger batch at once, with a larger variety of vegetables and then either eat the leftovers cold, or reheat in the microwave.
the batch I made on 2026-02-22 unplanned errands contained
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 small head of cauliflower
- 1/8 of a head of cabbage
- 1 zucchini
- 1 small bag of kale
- 1/4 chili pepper
- fresh grated ginger
- 50 g butter
- 0.5 c chunky peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- mushroom powder
- curry powder
- roasted garlic pepper
- coriander powder
- nutmeg powder
- onion powder
- garlic powder
- rosemary
- probably some other spices I am forgetting, just add whatever sounds good.
The batch I made on 2025-12-24 contained:
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 head of broccoli
- 1/4 bag of Brussels sprouts
- 1 zucchini
- 1 small bag of snap peas
- 1 chili pepper
- fresh grated ginger
- 50 g butter
- 0.5 c chunky peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- mushroom powder
- curry powder
- roasted garlic pepper
- coriander powder
- nutmeg powder
- onion powder
- garlic powder
- probably some other spices I am forgetting, just add whatever sounds good.
To make this I start with peeling the garlic and dropping the whole cloves into water in the bottom of the steamer along with some mushroom powder (the mushroom powder is a new addition, I didn’t used to use it, and it was fine). Then as the water starts to heat I chop the sweet potato and put it into the steaming tray and start it steaming as I chop the broccli stem and then add it to the steamer (setting asside the flower part to add later). Then I cut up the Brussels sprouts
At this point I started the sauce, melting the butter in a small pot and adding the chilli (I didn’t use the seeds, as I thought pleasantly spicy would be good enough), then I took that off the heat and set it asside while I chopped the zucchini and peas and added them, and the broccli flowers to the steamer (which was now as full of veg as it can be—sometimes I make an even bigger batch, with more variety of veg, in which case I need to finish steaming the earlier veg and set them asside in a mixing bowl as the next batch steams, either way, I always steam the veg in order—starting with whatever I think will take longest to cook as I want it tp soften, and things that need only a hint of steam to be good, like broccli flowers or fresh spinach, last).
The steamer being very full, I had time to finish the sauce before the last of the veg was ready.
I turned the heat back on under the small pot, added the grated ginger and spices to the butter, along with the peanut butter and soy sauce. By then the veg was ready, so I put it in a mixing bowl and fished the now soft garlic out of the steaming water, mushed it, and added it to the sauce, along with enough of the steaming water to make the sauce a nice pourable consistency before blending it with the ved (the rest of the now quite dark steaming water was saved to make soup).
While this makes a very large batch of veg, it is always so good I never have any problems finishing over the course of the next few days, even though Keldor doesn’t help much due to the presence of Brussels sprouts (this time), or cabbage (often used instead) and peanut butter However, even though he doesn’t like cabbage and has an inherent distrust of peanut butter, the spiciness of the sauce usually makes him willing to eat one serving.