Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot. A mix of summer's best veggies like sweet onion, fresh corn, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, sweet bell pepper and okra, a perfect dish for the veggie lovers!
Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot
Let's have a last hurrah for summer y'all! We are finally at the end of it this Friday, well, at least according to the calendar. There won't be any fall-like temperatures showing up here in the Deep South for awhile yet even then. In fact, the past two days there has been a heat index advisory of 110 degrees. Hey, the good news is this dish can be served hot, warm or at room temperature!
I love vegetables, and this stew is loaded with the summer vegetables I love.
Other than just a general vegetable stew, I actually wasn't quite sure what I wanted to call this recipe when it was all said and done, but when I opened the stored container to heat up a serving the next day, and the aroma immediately spoke gumbo to me, so that's what I settled on.
While there's no roux, okra acts as a thickener and with a sprinkle of filé powder at the end, qualifies it I suppose.
{Southern Style Hissy Fit Warning} If the fact that I am calling this a vegetable "gumbo" is somehow disturbing to you, do me a favor before you decide you have the right to tell me - or anybody else for that matter - what to do in our kitchens. Open a browser tab, use your favorite search engine and type in "define gumbo." You're welcome. {tucking away my soapbox}
There. Since that is out of the way, let's get on with this post!
Although I'd say, this is akin to my Skillet Ratatouille, it's really a fusion of the Italian dish, Stufato di Verdue, aka garden in a pot, and a Spanish version of a vegetable stew called Caldo, translated as big cauldron. I'm doing the summertime version, though you can easily translate this in the winter by using whatever is available fresh.
Don't freak about over the ingredient list. In addition to a base mirepoix (sweet onion, carrot and celery), it's just a bunch of fresh summer vegetables - fresh corn, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, sweet bell pepper and okra - and some seasonings. I used a little bacon for flavoring and don't forget to scrape the corn cobs too to add to the stew.
Here's how to make it.
You'll note the perfectly cubed veggies in the picture. You can certainly chop, of course, but I used the dicing attachment on my KitchenAid because I wanted the vegetables to hold their shape better for a longer stewing time.
The difference between dicing and chopping, is that chopped veggies have very little continuity in size and cut. When sauteed, they sort of just melt into the skillet, generally as intended for any given recipe.
Diced vegetables, on the other hand, are uniformly square, and hold their texture more, resulting in a completely different texture and flavor from chopped, sliced or even chunks of vegetables.
For more of my favorite gumbo recipes, check out the collection on my Pinterest page!
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