Over the past few years I've tried to change my diet so that I eat
more vegetables. It's part of the whole "getting healthier" thing
that we tend to do as we get older.
My tastes have changed. I used to hate V-8 but now I can drink and
actually enjoy it. I used to dislike the taste of green bell peppers
but I've eaten the sweet red and yellow and orange peppers enough to
where the green bell peppers taste okay to me now. I still prefer
them cooked instead of raw but they taste okay.
One of the dishes that I like to make is roasted brussel sprouts. And
I really like it! Which surprises me a lot. When I was growing up
the only brussel sprouts that I knew came in TV dinners and they were
mushy nasty things that I always skipped. But roasted brussel sprouts
where they're just getting soft in their little crispy on the outside
are delicious to me now. Throw in some mushrooms, onions, and red
peppers not the spicy kind and it makes for a really delicious dish!
Recently I wanted to try something different. So I asked my wife to
pick up some fresh okra if she could on her next grocery run. And she
did.
I love okra when it's fried, but I don't really like okra in a soup or
a gumbo. So I cut up the okra into the pieces like I get when they
fry it, coated them with some olive oil and spices, and then roasted
them like I do the brussel sprouts. They turned out delicious! Good
flavor with the whole full okra taste, no sliminess, just goodness. I
could've cooked them a little bit longer because some of the pieces
were little tough to chew, but that probably explains why most people
put them into a soup or gumbo.
It was funny because I was telling a friend from Louisiana about that.
He laughed and asked if I knew what the word "gumbo" meant. He told
me that okra was one of the few vegetables that was brought over from
Africa and is mostly grown in the South. He said that the word
"gumbo" is derived from the African word for okra. And so gumbo means
okra. He laughed and he said so when people say that they like gumbo
but they don't really like the okra he knows that they don't really
know the meaning of the word gumbo and the history of the vegetable.
Very funny!
Give roasting okra a try. It turned out really well! 400 for 45
minutes in a cast iron skillet worked well for me. Enjoy!
