Remembering Carl Ulbrich

In the mid-1970s, my dad coached my sister’s fifth grade Y basketball team. I suspect he did this because my mother told him that Carla wanted to play basketball and they needed a coach. I don’t know what their record was. In fact, I’d be surprised if they won at all. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was there for a ragtag team of 10 year olds, who have told me 40 years later, that my dad was really important to them.

He probably didn’t really do anything that he thought was special or different. He just went in, coached, listened and had fun and that was all those kids needed. He even took the time to take their pictures as if they played for the pros. I remember these pictures because my sister chose to wear her green nylon Snoopy socks on that day and while I think Dad was a little irked, he let her do it anyway. Those kids, some whose families were going through rough times, must have felt like rock stars.

And yet when you would try to explain to Dad the impact he had on his daughters and their friends, he would just shrug as though he didn’t really think he had done something different.

I never met anyone that didn’t just adore Carl Ulbrich. He was gentle and kind, giving and patient. My sisters and I wanted him to love each one of us best. I tried to get him to sign a card once to me, with “to my favorite daughter” to which he wrote “to my favorite 9-year old daughter in 1973.” Dad was just fun. He was so horrified by the quality of the cartoon shows on Saturday morning that he made a point of having the channel on CBS, so that we would watch Looney Tunes together instead of Land of the Lost. He loved Wile E. Coyote the best, dreaming of the day that he could put together a highlight reel to show his students, so they could identify all the laws of physics that were broken.

And he stayed young by remaining curious, about everything, with a certain amount of glee about him. He would call me, excited to tell me something new: “Hey Chris!” he would say and then pause. “Uh, this is your father speaking.,” as though I wouldn’t know who he was. Inevitably, he had found something new or interesting or funny and he wanted to share it. In his 70s, I remember him telling me he had been watching the Real World, just because he was curious. (I think he watched it once.) We would visit art museums, only for me to wait on him to finish looking at some truly strange modern art. He approached everything as though it might have value.

And he treated people the same. This is why everyone adored him. He could be loose and funny. His former graduate students talk about his wise and patient mentorship, shaping when he needed, backing off when he didn’t, and the excitement he had for his research. When I brought home my future husband, my father took him under his wing, becoming not just a father-in-law to him, but a father figure. Together, they built computers, went to NASCAR, worked on cars and enjoyed a few beers.

His curiosity sometimes led us to wonder about his common sense. Once, a tornado warning became so real that my manager made everyone hide in the basement of our office. Later that night, Dad sent us pictures he took while chasing down that same storm. Another time, he was in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Georges hit. I remember the first sentence of the email: “I am in the eye of the hurricane right now.” He tracked hurricanes on the Winn Dixie bags printed with regional maps, plotting the points he got on the Weather Radio. While he was sad for the destruction from these storms, he was fascinated by their power.

We were convinced he could fix anything. I found a letter once my mother had written my grandmother, saying that my sister asked him to fix her orange crayon. We didn’t get a toy kitchen from the store; instead my dad built one, with actual tiny oven racks and burners that turned on a Christmas light underneath the wood burners. A plastic tub was the sink. He made us toy furniture, using parabolas and ovals as the inspiration for the shapes. We were the luckiest kids in Clemson.

And so Dad, I wish you goodbye. You may have been a small man in stature, but you stood tall in our eyes. Your energy, your patience, your kindness and your love of life kept you young for 83 years. Your impact as a good man, husband, dad, granddad, teacher and mentor will not be forgotten. I can only hope to carry on those values and pass them to my daughter. You were the best dad I could have ever asked for. We will miss you every day. May we carry on your legacy. We love you.

Arugula Spread

A pound of arugula isn’t the same as a pound of sweet potatoes. A pound of arugula can last a long, long time.

Now when I comment about the amount of arugula I might have, my husband’s suggestion is always to make po boys. This is a lovely thought, but it won’t make a dent in a large bag of arugula. So I did what I always do in a situation like this: I turn to the internets. And the internets gave me this.

I made Gina’s pizza almost exactly as prescribed, except I had a crust already in the fridge, and so I used that. We were surprised to find the sauce before cooking to be quite sharp, but that it completely mellowed out when you baked with it. Plus, we still had a ton of it left over.

My husband’s brilliant idea this time was to make ravioli and while I thought that was a great idea, turns out that Wednesdays can be a little crazy and I didn’t have time to be stuffing raviolis. So, I just put it on pasta with some tomatoes, black olives and red pepper. And that was even better than the pizza. The spread is versatile: you could put it on bread, you could put it on any number of grains or rice, you could add it to pasta or you can use it just about any way you might use pesto.

So, with that in mind, here’s how I made it.

• 1 cup of packed arugula, stems removed (and since I had a large bag, I really packed it)
• 2-3 cloves garlic (depends on how bite-y you want this)
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 7 ounces smoked mozzarella
• 2 T olive oil (more if you are using on pasta, less if you are using as a spread)
• About a teaspoon of smoked paprika. Or you can use pepper if you like. I skipped the salt because I figure the cheese is salty enough.

Throw all that in the food processor and puree. Done.

When I made the pasta, I used about half the recipe here and stirred it into a box of cooked shells. I then added a small can of sliced black olives, a finely chopped red pepper and two chopped and seeded Roma tomatoes.

Lebanese Fried Potatoes

Turkish coffee, brewed in a funky container.

Last weekend, I was in Long Beach, California to attend and present at the UCDA Conference. (An aside: if you are a college designer, this is a fantastic organization for you and I’m grateful to be involved. Now back to my usual food-based posts.)

My friend Pam asked if we wanted to go for drinks and the next thing you know, there are nine of us heading on the 121 bus to Belmont Shore for dinner. She highly recommended eating at Open Sesame, and said the fried potatoes were amazing.

I don’t eat a ton of potatoes because I typically find them pretty bland. Plus, I almost never eat French fries, as I find them too greasy. But, while in Rome (or with UCDA colleagues), eat like they do, so I tried them.

Holy cow delicious. I then dragged my colleagues down there at the end of the conference and all declared them to be amazing. Seriously. Amazing came up every time.

The delicious and stylish hummus at Open Sesame

Now I’m back from my trip and missing a Mediterranean restaurant. Plus, my farm share had three of the necessary ingredients for the potatoes, which was too good to be true. So, based on this recipe, I whipped up my own batch, with the approval of my family.

Here’s my version:

1. Peel and chop about 4 small to medium potatoes to about 1/2″ cube. While you are doing this, heat a skillet on medium, preferably a cast iron skillet. Add a tablespoon of coconut oil and cook the potatoes in that, turning periodically. You probably need to let them cook for about 10-15 minutes. Add a pinch of salt. Mine were a little bit firm when I was done, so do leave yourself the time to get them cooked.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, mince 5-6 normal sized garlic cloves. Chop up about a 1/4 cup of cilantro (stems removed).
3. When your potatoes are finished, remove from the pan and set aside. Add another tablespoon of coconut oil (you can use olive too, but coconut withstands higher temps better) and then add the garlic. Only cook this for about 30 seconds to a minute. Add 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice and the chopped cilantro. Stir for a minute, then add the potatoes.
4. Cook for about 5 minutes. Adjust flavors. My suggestion? Add a teaspoon of smoked paprika, some more lemon juice and a bit of red chili powder. Serve warm.

Sorry to not have a picture! Instead, I’m showing off the Open Sesame hummus.

Mustard Green Triangles

Confession: I’m not really terribly Southern when it comes to food. I enjoy peaches and grits (not together), sure, but I don’t eat barbeque, or fried chicken or drink sweet tea. And, I’d never had mustard greens. So, I was a bit perplexed as to what I should do with them. One person told me “Oh I love mustard greens after they’ve been simmering all day on the stove with some fatback.” Hmm, OK, not going to do that.

I had considered throwing it in with the Spanikopita, but when I took a bite, it was sharp. And it was definitely mustard-y.

My cookbooks weren’t much help here, so I went to the googles to see what they suggested. Much of it seemed to recommend making them like any other green (saute with sesame oil, ginger, etc etc.) I know how to do that, but I also had leftover phyllo dough. So, time to invent. I made Mustard Green Triangles.

You will need:

• Mustard Greens. I had 8 big leaves.
• Olive oil. Maybe a tablespoon?
• Red onion. I had half a small one leftover from making coleslaw.
• Garlic. I used a garlic scape, because I have a zillion of them.
• Dill. Because it seemed to go with mustard?
• Rice vinegar. A tablespoon at most. I didn’t even use that, because I ran out.
• Agave. Because I love honey mustard and I was making it up. I used a teaspoon.

Saute the onions for 4-5 minutes, add the scapes for a minute, then the mustard greens. Push those around for a minute and then add the dill, vinegar and agave. Take that off the heat and mix in:

• Walnuts, chopped up. I went with a fistful, so half a cup?
• Parmesan cheese, a quarter cup. Or maybe whatever cheese you want to add. I would have used feta but I had Parmesan.

Now for the phyllo dough part. You will need:

• Phyllo dough
• A tablespoon of butter (melted) and a tablespoon of olive oil, mixed together
• A pastry brush

Follow the directions on the box for thawing and all. Take a sheet of waxed paper and butter it. Then take a sheet of phyllo and butter that. Then fold that in half, and put a couple of tablespoons of mixture on one corner. Then fold up like a paper football. Repeat until you run out of mixture.

Put on a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper and bake for 15-20 minutes at 375.

 

Sweet Potato Black Bean Wraps

Me: we have beet greens, collards, cilantro and lettuce left. Ideas? Husband: fish tacos? Me: Hmm, OK, not sure fish tacos will use up a lot of those CSA ingredients, but I’ll figure something out.

I decided to use the collards as wraps and then make a mix of sweet potatoes and black beans. That mixture is based on a recipe for Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas from Whole Foods. Then I wrapped them in steamed collards, which there’s a fabulous demonstration of how to do that here. (I will add that I’d steam them the entire minute next time. 30 seconds was just not quite enough time.)

Here’s the recipe:

1. Black beans: you can either cook these the slow, traditional way or you can pressure cook them (my preferred method) or you can use canned. Rinse well if using canned. Add to the beans:
   • a clove or two of crushed garlic
   • a tablespoon of lime juice
   • salt
   • cilantro to your taste
2. Sweet potatoes: get a pot of water boiling and add a medium sweet potato that has been peeled and diced into 1/2 pieces. Boil for about 10 minutes. Drain, put back in empty pot and add:
   • Half a can of diced green peppers
   • Cumin (about a tablespoon)
   • Red chile powder, to taste. I probably used a teaspoon. The kid complains if I use too much.
3. Mix the two together and put in the collards. I added a dollop of salsa after these were served, and served with rice and chips. You could also spread avocado on the leaves first, but not if you plan to reheat them. (Which they reheated quite nicely in the microwave.)

The husband wouldn’t touch these (he doesn’t care for sweet potatoes anyway) but the kid sure loved them.

Veggie Cassoulet

This week, the farm share brought us another plethora of greens: lettuce, collards, beets (and thus attached greens), spinach, kale and Swiss chard.

I will confess that until three years ago, I had never heard of Swiss chard. As a result, I had to turn to the internet to figure out what to do with it. And for a long time, that was a Spanikopita. 

Alas, we tired of that too. Risotto was also a good solution, but this week, I reached out again. This time, I reached for my cookbooks and found the unsinkable Mollie Katzen. I have a few of her cookbooks, but this one I found at my favorite local bookstore, McClure’s. And it’s a good one. I’ve pulled it out twice this week: for the beet pilaf and this dish. (Note: this version is also slightly revised from the original, which called for shallots, baby potatoes and baby carrots.)

Normally I try not to blog recipes that I stick closely too, but as it turns out, I did make a few substitutions. However, I also highly recommend you get this book, as it has lots of winners in it. I had meant to use beans, as she suggested, but my beans turned to absolute paste, so we threw in lentils instead. My husband confessed relief at this and in the end, so did I. Neither of us digest white beans particularly well.

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 pound baby potatoes, sliced in half
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp each dried sage, oregano, and thyme
• 1 c dry red wine
• 1 bag baby carrots
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 c vegetable stock 
• 1.5 cups lentils
• 3 c (packed) Swiss chard (can also use any number of greens)

1. Heat your Dutch oven for about 5 minutes over a medium-low heat and melt the butter and the olive oil together. When it starts to sizzle a bit, add the onions and cook for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes, covered. Add the salt and cook for 10 more minutes.
2. Add the carrots, garlic, spices and red wine. Stir to cover everything and cover to cook for 10 minutes. Add the veggie stock (I think it was a cup. It was leftover in the fridge.) Add the lentils (I think it was a cup and a half. It was what I had left.) Stir, cover and cook for 30-40 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, stir in greens, cover back up and let sit for 10 minutes.
4. She suggests adding a bread crumb-butter mixture, but I didn’t get to this and it was tasty as was. 

A definite keeper.

Bok Choy Noodles

The fine students at Clemson University, where I work and graduated and grew up, grow food every year and we lucky locals get to bring it home all summer and fall. It is some mighty fresh food.

The first year I signed up, I did a half share. The half share was really way more than a half. The full share people got the veggies that weren’t in enough abundance for everyone. In the end, it was a ridiculous amount of food and way more than I could use, even if I froze stuff, which I stink at doing. My husband said he would not permit me to do it again unless I split it. (Although how he would stop me, not sure.)

This proved to be wise, as they did away with the half and full shares and so now I split it with friends. It was far more manageable last year, so we split it again this year.

We are on week two of the share and I’ve managed to use most of the food. This time of year, it’s greens. Lots and lots of greens. Baby beet greens, romaine, arugula, romaine, collards, kale, Swiss, chard, bok choy … you name it.

Here is one of the new recipes I’ve tried. I based it off of this recipe, but then made it my own.

Ingredients

• Tofu, extra firm
• Ginger (did you know? Peel with a spoon), diced
• Garlic, two cloves
• Bok choy, in my case, half a head. Ribbon the greens and cut the stalks into pieces. (And throw in the collards you got mixed in with the bok choy and didn’t see when you made risotto with that and the Swiss chard.)
• Carrots, about a cup sliced up
• Udon noodles
• A Leek (slice this bad boy up and cut in half and soak in water for about 5-10 minutes, to get rid of the sand. Thank you Martha for this tip!)
• Sesame oil
• Rice vinegar
• Lemon
• Soy sauce
• Peanut oil

Directions

1. Drain your tofu and press between two plates for 15 minutes. Put something heavy on top of the top plate, like a big can or maybe a cast iron skillet. Cube. The link I found suggested coating with corn starch. I’m lazy, so I skipped this. Put on a baking sheet lined with parchment (don’t be lazy here, trust me, you will scrub your sheets raw if you don’t use parchment). Bake at 350 for 15-30 minutes.
2. Cook your udon noodles per the directions. I cooked about 2/3 of our package of noodles. And, from what I’ve read, you really really should rinse them.
3. While your water is heating, get your wok or pan or whatever heating up. When it gets close to a boil, get your peanut oil heating up. Once you add the noodles, dump in the leek (which of course, you have drained the water) and the ginger and the garlic. Saute that for about 5 minutes. Then add the carrots and bok choy stems and saute that for another 4-5 minutes. Add the vinegar, oil and sesame oil at this time. (Sorry, I don’t measure. Maybe a T or two of everything? Just don’t go crazy and add as you adjust for taste.) Toss in the tofu. Then, toss in the greens and cook until the greens wilt.
4. At this point, your noodles should be done. Drain, rinse and add to the mixture. Add a few shakes of lemon juice. SERVE.
5. Keep away from your cats, although they probably won’t eat it anyway.

I got sadly slack after my last post from Korea, so if I try anything new, I promise to be more diligent about posting it. Although … three years in, I make a lot of the old tried and true these days!

A Vegetarian Goes to Korea

Pork typography

Does she find something to eat? Well, kind of. The following is only my experience, which was limited by the tour bus and my lack of knowledge of Korean, but here’s some things I learned during my week in the Hermit Kingdom.

1. Trying to eat vegetarian in a Korean restaurant is like going to a barbecue joint and thinking they will have tofu. Not all Asian cuisine is meat-free. Most of the restaurants we found were smaller places with limited menus and apparently not many are getting requests for vegetarian entrees. One place suggested if we didn’t eat pork, perhaps we’d prefer a beef entree.
2. Vegetarian? It has vegetables in it, sure! The concept of leaving out a food group is not completely understood in Korea.
3. The appetizers (banchan) served at Korean restaurants IS vegetarian. Mung beans, seaweed (I think), kimchi, daikon were all things we could happily eat while others enjoyed a bowl of soup (with a bone floating in it.)
4. It helps if you eat seafood. Shrimp fried rice was an appetizer for most, and dinner for us.
5. 

   Korean pancake

   It helps if you like pancakes. While others enjoyed meat on a stick at the market, we found Korean pancakes, which were (in this case) dough and Chinese onions, which were good. Sure it’s carbs. It’s either that or meat, folks!

6. It helps if you’re the big city. In Seoul, we found plenty to eat. I had pizza with pansies on it. I had a delicious tofu and eggplant dish. We even had a lovely buffet with plenty for everyone on it. Outside of that? Well, your choices are more limited. And, you might want to consider not eating Korean.
7. Consider the chains. Korea is covered with American chain restaurants. If you’re really worried about it, you could eat at a chain restaurant. Outback, Starbucks, 7-11, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, Burger King … not necessarily healthy nor vegetarian, but you get the idea.

Here’s some places we tried:

Black soybean sauce on noodles

A rest area between Seoul and Korea: the highways don’t have clusters of restaurants like we do in the states. They put their restaurants under one big roof, you order at one location and then you pick up your food at whatever food station you ordered. I went with the black soybean sauce on noodles. My first experience picking out pork from my dish. I quickly learned that pork is like seasoning here.

Green Cafe, Busan (sorry can’t find this online): This was a small little cafe, very typical of ones you find in Korea. They have tables close to the floor, so you remove your shoes and sit on the floor. They only serve Korean and they are small family restaurants. These feel authentic but the menus are very limited and tend to not have a lot of choices. Still, I recommend trying at least one. I had a delicious Korean pancake here, which she cut up with a pair of scissors.

Baby octopus stew

Another person had the baby octopus stew and the octopus was cut up at the table.

A spot for night eating in Busan: We ended up here after searching and being told “pork is tasty!” This looked semi-English friendly and we still needed help translating. (Highly recommended that you learn just a few Korean phrases and I freely admit to being unprepared for this.) This time, there were pictures, so we went with the seafood noodle dish and … there was that pesky pork flavoring again. Again, it was picked out and this time, someone at the table happily scarfed it up.

SeoMun Market: a BIG market, around for more than 100 years. Lots of stand with vendors that sell textiles and all sorts of things, and lots of little stations selling food, prepared or dried or whatever. The prepared isn’t exactly health food. Lots of meat on a stick or the like. I found another pancake here that was OK. Lots of sweets to eat as well, although that’s not necessarily a good option. (It is, however, a tasty one.)

Fast food Korean style in SeoMun market

Another little Korean restaurant in Tongyeong: this one was a big challenge. Very little English spoken here. We found one place and asked for six bowls of soup with meat, two without. We ended up with just six bowls of soup. The vegetarians ended up eating the appetizers.

One more Korean restaurant in Daegu: we thought this was a noodle place. It was not. Again, very little English, again feeling very stupid for not learning more Korean. We found someone else on the tour who spoke both languages who said “oh you don’t eat pork? You probably want to leave.” She asked if we didn’t eat pork, perhaps we eat beef? We finally found the shrimp fried rice, which was certainly OK. There was an interesting tofu place, but it was totally out of the way and besides, the husband does not eat tofu.

Eggplant and Tofu from Touch and Spice

Touch and Spice in Seoul (Gangnam area): finally! something for everyone. I had the eggplant and fried tofu in honey and ginger sauce which was delicious. Others had the wasabi chicken or the pork chop. The kid had a pasta dish with smoked salmon. The first night where everyone was very happy with their meal. We also got dessert, which was less successful. The apple pie dish was more like an apple quesadilla and the ice cream dish was cereal and marshmallow cream with ice cream on top. So, go for the entrees, skip the dessert.

Blacksmith, Seoul: this is got to be a chain but who cares! We settled on this because they looked to have something for vegetarians and something for my husband: bacon and garlic fried rice. He said his was delicious. We got the pizza primavera, which was pizza with sauce and a little cheese (they don’t have a lot of cheese in Korea and I salute them for that!), topped with arugula and … pansies! It was quite good.

Lotte Hotel restaurant: WOW. My friend MiSun took us all out for dinner and what a lavish spread. Indian food, a carving station, a salad bar, lots of Korean food and a sushi station. I think there was Italian food too. Something for everyone. So good! Everyone was happy.

Sweet Potato Kale Frittata

Sweet Potato and Egg Stack

The family worked out hard today: I ran 10 miles for the first time since the marathon back in March and they went to Kuk Sool Won for tournament training, which was four hours long. So an easy meal that had a lot of protein seemed to be in order. Along with that, the farm share had given me kale and sweet potato, which reminded me of making that before. Earlier in the week, I’d made this dish from Vegetarian Times, which was so absolutely delicious. Sweet potatoes with cumin are unbelievable. With that in mind, I concluded that instead of dicing the potatoes and then boiling them, I’d just grate them and saute them in the oil with the other ingredients, before adding the egg. This was a true win. You get the sweet potato flavor throughout the meal, instead of in chunks.

I also made a second frittata at the same time, much smaller, for my husband, who hates sweet potatoes. Compromise is what makes a marriage work, right? He made himself some pork chops to go with it. My daughter and I passed on those.

Now before you start a frittata, you really need a cast iron pan. I love mine so much, it’s really the only kind of pan I have now. (Bonus: they are cheap compared to other pans.) You can use an oven-safe pan, sure, but it’s just not as good as the cast iron. Since I made two, I have a small and a large version of the frittata.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 sweet potato, medium (large dish) OR 1 smallish potato (small dish), grated
• 3-4 kale leaves, torn into small pieces
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• Half an onion (I always use sweet), diced
• Oil
• Thyme
• Smoked paprika
• Splash of vinegar. I used rice vinegar.
• Salt
• 6 eggs (large dish) OR 4 eggs (small dish) [You could go up two eggs for each dish too if you really like eggs.]
• Couple tablespoons of milk
• Parmesan cheese (I had the grated and the sliced and both worked well, so take your pick)

Method:

1. Prep the ingredients as above to get ready. Preheat oven to 400. Heat the oil in your skillet. Crack your eggs in a glass container (I have about eight of those Pyrex cups and use one of those.) Add the milk and scramble your eggs.
2. Add the onion and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 30 seconds.
3. Add the potatoes and saute until well coated. You may need to add more oil.
4. Add the spices and mix into the potato mixture. Cook for about 3-4 minutes.
5. Add the kale and your vinegar and continue to saute until the kale is properly wilted. This is about 2 minutes.
6. Add the eggs, mixing with the ingredients until you have a fairly even distribution of ingredients. Cook for about 3-4 minutes or until the bottom has settled.
7. Put the skillets in the oven and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove and add cheese on top.
8. Cut into triangles and serve!

Feel free to change the seasoning. Heck, change the veggies! I have a friend who says when she’s at a loss as to what to do, it goes in a frittata. Very versatile, and quicker than a quiche. Plus, you don’t have the crust of a quiche, which let’s face it, isn’t usually all that great to begin with and is the least healthy part of the dish.

Veggie Gumbo

So the farm produces a lot of okra. We’ve roasted it and that’s pretty good, but my husband keeps saying “gumbo!”

Now the truth is that my husband loves me, but he’d love me a whole lot more if I ate a steak once in a while, or loved chicken every night. And the truth is that I used to eat chicken, but then my daughter and I went vegetarian. I’m not going to say it’s been easy, but we make it work. Still, he was aghast when he saw I made gumbo without any seafood.

I would have thought about that, but I knew the soup was going to be sitting around for more than a few days, and I was worried that the shrimp would turn before the veggies. Besides, I had enough chopping facing me as it was.

I turned to my trusty friend Vegetarian Times for a recipe and they did not disappoint. This recipe was my starting point.

• ½ cup vegetable oil (yes, it is a lot of oil, but it really does make the soup worthwhile. Just use a good oil. I went with grapeseed.)
• ⅓ cup flour
• 1 onion, chopped (Vidalia, what else?)
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes
• 2 cups fresh green beans
• 3 carrots, sliced
• 1 parsnip, diced
• 1 cup fresh or sliced okra
• 1 ear corn, kernels removed from cob
• Box of veggie broth
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup barley
• 1 Tbs. ground cumin
• 1 Tbs. paprika
• 1 Tbs. dried oregano
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

1. Stir together oil and flour in Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot until smooth. Cook over high heat 10 minutes, or until roux turns a dark caramel color, stirring constantly.

2. Add onion, bell pepper, and celery, and cook 5 minutes, or until vegetables are softened. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook 40 minutes, or until carrots are tender.

Between the okra and the barley, this makes a fierce, thick stew. My husband bought some sausage and ate that along with it and that seemed to work. This made an enormous amount of stew, so if you make it, get ready to enjoy it a lot!