Easy, Vegan-Friendly African Peanut Stew

I was as hungry as a tiger during my last class today, and all I could think about was trying African peanut stew. I've been seeing recipes pop up evvverywhere on the internet lately and noticed that they all vary pretty greatly, but all have the same basic ingredients. The combination of peppers, peanut butter, and fragrant spices were what intrigued me most--cinnamon AND chili AND cumin AND curry?! I'm in! So, I came home today and accomplished my mission of making my own version. Holy cow, is this exactly what I wanted.

What I used (be warned, I don't measure my spices because I taste as I go):

• 3/4 yellow bell pepper, finely diced
• 1/4 yellow onion, finely diced
• 1/2 can Rotel tomatoes with green chilies
• 1 can veggie broth
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 large sweet potato, steamed and chopped
• 1/3 cup peanut butter (I like it chunky :) ) *
• 1 heaping teaspoon vegan cream cheese (optional)
• ginger powder
• cinnamon (I used a lot, as I'm a cinnamon addict)
• curry powder
• chili powder
• cumin
• garlic powder

*If it was up to my tummy and not my blemish-prone skin, I'd have used more peanut butter.

I cooked the bell pepper and onion until the onions were translucent. Then I added the rest of the ingredients, covered it, let it simmer for about 10 minutes, and ran my mini boat motor through it for a few seconds so that it was half smooth and half chunky.
I served it over  some perfectly chewy barley with chopped peanuts on top.

after the addition of the soupy liquid and stirred :)

Clearly, this was just too damn difficult.