Recipe: Sort-of-African Peanut Stew

I don't remember how the discussion got started, but at some point, my supervisor started telling me about her favorite soup. She had me at "peanut soup", but then said it had sweet potato and coconut milk in it and all these yummy things! I immediately demanded the recipe, and she kindly provided it. The original recipe can be found HERE. It originally used turkey, but other than that, my recipe follows basically the same proportions for everything else. I substituted pork in my recipe because I had some delicious ground pork from the local pork CSA I had bought a couple months ago. Find the recipe after the page break!

Sort-of-African Peanut Stew
Makes 6 servings

1 good drizzle of EVOO
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch of fresh ginger root, peeled & minced
1 Tbsp. curry powder (I love THIS ONE)
a couple shakes of red pepper flakes
3 average sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 13.5 oz box of reduced sodium chicken broth
2 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 lb of ground pork
Salt and black pepper to season
1/2 cp natural crunchy PB
1 14 oz can of unsweetened coconut milk (I usually use the brand Taste of Thai)
1 Tbsp brown sugar or coconut sugar
Cilantro to garnish

Directions:

• Heat EVOO in a large pot (e.g. 6 qt dutch oven). Add onion, let cook with some stirring until softened, about 5 min or so. 
• Add garlic, ginger, curry powder and red pepper flakes. Stir constantly and cook for another 30 seconds or so, trying to not let it stick to the bottom of the pan. 
• Stir in sweet potatoes, broth and tomatoes. Bring to boil and simmer, covered for 10 min.
• While simmering stew, in a large skillet, cook pork until just cooked through, breaking it up into bits as you go. Season with salt and pepper. Leave to drain on paper towels.
• Into stew, whisk in PB and coconut milk. 
• Add cooked pork. Season with some salt. 
• Add brown sugar. Bring to boil and simmer, uncovered for 20 min.
• Garnish with cilantro, and enjoy!