Italian Tomatoes and Olives

Before changing our diet to take out meat, dairy and eggs. One of my go to cheap, easy and tasty meals was Italian beef. Slow cooked beef with tomatoes and olives. It was yummy, you could have it with potatos, salad or dumplings. (Or all three.) At Retro Festival, we brought some huge, delicious, olives. I could have just eaten my way through the bag but then I thought it was worth having a go at this dish from a vegan point of view. Having just come back from 5 nights away in Daisy (our 1969 Bluebird Caravan) I had some veg to use up, so for this dish I've just used what I had to hand. Am sure you could mix it up a bit, and I will experiment a little with this recipe too. One thing I don't know I can recreate is the olives have been stuffed and mixed in herbs and socked garlic. The company just said they came from London and couldn't give me a card. (Also there was about 3-4 garlic cloves mixed in with the olives. They are not needed for this but you can add if you want.)

I've slow cooked it as it really brings out the flavours. 

Ingredients:

About a cup of your fav olives, black and green both work, I like a mix but this one just had the ones brought from the show.

1x tin of tomatoes (once you have added the tomatoes, refill the now empty tin with water, add that as well. Do the same with red wine.)

About 2x glasses of red wine-half a bottle.

2x celery sticks

1x small - to - medium size sweed

About a cup of butternut squash 

1x red onion

2x red peppers

3-4 large tomatos 

Herbs: fresh rosemary, mint and black pepper 

Chop up the sweed and butternut to small cube about the size of a 50p, square. Pop in your slow cooker. Add the celery, chopped up. 

Fry the onions (very small) and chopped up peppers. 

Add the butternut and then tomatos (always adding the slowest thing to cook on the bottom and quickest on top.)

Add black pepper and herbs. 

Add the olives, tin of tomatos. Then refil the tin with water, add to the slow cooker then refil with red wine and add. Cook on high for an hour or until it starts to bubble on top. Then turn to low. I forgot about it and it was left on all night! I would say 3-5hrs is all that's needed on low. 

I served it with pan fried dumplings and new potatoes.

I will write up my recipe for pan fried dumplings soon!