the gumbo success

I taunted you with that whole "live blogging" thing, didn't I? And then to wait a few days to even mention it again... It's just cruel. And I apologize.

So I'm here to make it up to you, recipe in tow, and to tell you that it turned out almost just like my mother's rendition of okra gumbo. Armed with the fond memory of summer dinner at home, a pound of fresh okra from mom's garden, and a recipe by Mark Bittman, I got to work in the kitchen on Sunday night.

I decided to prepare a vegetarian dish with a roux base, and it went a little something like this:

5 tbls butter
3 small onions, thickly sliced
2 1/2 cups chopped okra
21 oz (1 1/2 cans) organic whole peeled tomatoes, or a pound of fresh peeled tomatoes
1/4 cup flour
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 cup water
salt and pepper to taste
tabasco sauce to taste
3 cups cooked rice

In a large pot (I used the Dutch oven, surprise, surprise), begin by softening the onions for just a few minutes. Once they're soft, remove them from the pot and set aside. Add in the rest of the butter and the flour, stirring over medium heat to create a roux. If it cooks too quickly, simply turn down the heat. You'll want the roux to reach a nice Mississippi-mud color. Once you've got it, put the onions back in the pot and add the okra. Cook for a few minutes before adding the garlic, tomatoes, and water. Season with salt, pepper, and tabasco to taste. Let this cook down until the okra is tender, about 30 minutes.

Serve with white rice and plenty of hot sauce!

This made about four meal-sized servings; we had it for dinner on Sunday, and I made two lunches out of it this week. And each bite took me straight back to summers spent growing up on the farm...