Tremendous tomatoes

I planned to make timtimo today but didn't have enough onions.  By evening, I needed something quick to make and wanted Eritrean food.  I remembered that my friend said the beef zigni was much quicker to make than the chicken...I couldn't figure that out for the life of me...apparently it's more like a stir fry than a stew and the meat is cut small so it cooks relatively quickly without being tough.

I bought onions and two small packs of stew meat totaling 2.25 pounds, but only used 1 pack...after I cut the meat up, it seemed like plenty - I got to thinking, 5 of us will eat 1.25 pounds of meat - that's relatively small for Americans, but quite generous for those for whom meat is a luxury.

My planned accompaniment was to be peas and potatoes, but I forgot to buy the potatoes; my back up plan was spinach, but I had used most of that on Sunday; so I turned to the freezer - okra.  I was at a loss...my Ethiopian friend makes some very nice veggies, so that was my inspiration.

I sautéed onions, added a bit of ginger, tomato paste (I recently switched to TJs tomato paste when I finally decided to read the label on the standard cans - yup, high fructose corn syrup), then added the okra and 10 minutes later, the spinach.

When I started cooking, my sister was complaining that I was making another stew, but while we were sitting on the floor eating, she was loving it, especially the vegetables.  The qulwah was tasty, quite spicy, but tasty nonetheless.  That got me to thinking about the power of tomatoes to release and enhance the flavor of foods.  Is it the lycopene?

Tomatoes can be found in regional dishes all around the world, they can grow almost anywhere. They're cooked down as sauce, served raw in salads, and used as a base - the variation is due to cultural preferences.  Unfortunately the world renowned popularity of the tomato has contributed to its adulteration - most tomatoes are hybrids, sterile industrial jet-lagged pseudo-tomatoes that lack the character of what we now refer to as heirloom varieties.  The solution, grow them at home, in pots if you have to - tomato plants are high-yielding so they'll be plenty to preserve for the winter.