Making a yummy dish from what's on hand can be fun.

Cleaning up one planting bed, I pulled up the last two negi (long green onions), and snipped off a chunk of shungiku that was getting too large. And in my kitchen, I had some two-week old gobo, two sato imo (taro) left from my final fall harvest (the other four are starting to bud, so I'll plant those), a handful of Japanese sweet potatoes (satsuma imo), and kombu (kelp).

What did I do with all of these? I made a tasty stew.

COOKING DIRECTIONS:

1. Scrub all vegetables
2. Cut gobo into 1" sticks
3. In a heavy casserole pan, saute gogo in a little sesame oil.
4. Peel the Satsuma imo, cut into chunks, then add to the gobo saute.
5. Heat water for dashi.
6. Cut the rest of the veggies into small chunks and add carrots and sato imo to pan.
7. Pour in the hot water, add dashi no moto, and a 5" square of kombu.
8. Add about 2 tsp shoyu, 1 T mirin, 1 tsp sugar. It will quickly sizzled, then I let it simmer for about 20 or so minutes.
9. Take out kombu from pan, slice into thin ribbons, and put back into the stew.
10. Add the handful of shungiku and chopped negi about 5 min before serving piping hot.

The dish was so hearty and tasty, it didn't need meat. This was a great way to use up small amounts of different vegetables I had. This tasty stew was perfect for a cold evening.

Florence Nishida