Moosewood Restaurants Low-Fat Favorites has a whole section on stews. I haven't tried any, so I can't recommend them. Try looking for the book at your bookstore or library, it's a pretty good cookbook, I think.
Here, for reference, are the stews they list:
- Giambotta
- French vegetable bean stew
- Caribbean stew
- Mediterranean stew
- Thai vegetable curry
- Ukranian beet and bean stew
- Armenian stew with pilaf
- Three sisters stew
- Creole stew
- Persian split pean and barley stew
- Quinoa vegetable stew
- Mushroom sesame tofu stew
- Wild mushroom stew trieste
- Southwestern hominy stew
I'm not a big soup/stew fan, and none of those look particularly appetizing to me, so I haven't tried any. But the other recipes I've tried have been good.
For the adventurous chefs, they have advice for homemade stews. Cut vegetables into big chunks. Cook vegetables until they are tender, but not mush, so add slower cooking vegetables (dense root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, beets) before juicier vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers) so you don't get mush.
If you want a thinner stew, add more water or some appropriate liquid: tomatos, their juice, vegetable stock, wine, whatever blends. To thicken, add thick things: creamy vegetables (potatoes, yams, split peas), tahini, cornmeal, hominy, yellow split peas, different types of grains...
If you're cooking low fat, add spices to flavor it up. Fresh spices add more flavor than dried ones in bottles.
Anyway, since I'm a horrible cook, I never attempt anything from scratch -- I always mix the wrong things together. I'm a disaster at places like Mongolian barbecues because of that. But if you're adventurous, there's some general hints, and pick flavors that complement one another.