Vegetable Stew — The Colors on the Plate Match the Colors Outside

Fall is in full color. The birch trees are gold, the aspen are yellow-orange, the tundra on the mountainsides is red and rust, and the whole landscape looks like it's been painted by someone who was handed every warm color in the box and told: use them all, you have two weeks before everything is bare. The beauty of an Alaskan fall is violent in its brevity — two weeks of gold and then the wind comes and the leaves fall and the world goes gray-brown overnight, as though the color was borrowed and has been returned.

I wrote a fall blog post — "Autumn in Alaska: What to Cook When the Gold Leaves." About transitional cooking, about the shift from summer's light salads and grilled fish to fall's heavier stews and braises. About adobo in October, when the vinegar steam fogs the windows and the kitchen is the warmest room and the cooking is not just meal prep but climate control, the stove doing what the sun can't anymore.

Dr. Reeves and I had a good session this week. She noted, without fanfare, that I've been in therapy for two and a half years and that the work has shifted from crisis management to maintenance. She said "maintenance" like it was a compliment, which in therapy it is — maintenance means the system is working, the patient is stable, the interventions are effective, the check-ins are calibration rather than triage. I am a maintenance patient. I take my medication. I see my therapist. I cook my adobo. The system works.

I made pinakbet to celebrate the fall colors — the Ilocano vegetable stew with squash and eggplant and bitter melon, the dish that celebrates vegetables by cooking them simply and letting them taste like themselves. The squash was Alaskan — a big, orange kabocha from the farmer's market, the last of the season. The eggplant was Japanese — slim, dark purple, from the Asian grocery. The bitter melon was Lourdes's — she grows it on her windowsill, the only tropical vegetable that she's successfully cultivated in Alaska, through sheer force of will and the refusal to let the climate dictate what she eats.

The pinakbet was bright and vegetable-forward, the bitter melon adding its controversial edge, the squash sweet, the shrimp paste funky and salty in the background. I ate it with rice and the window showed the gold birch trees outside and the gold was fading but the food was here and the cooking was here and the fall was manageable and the colors, brief as they were, were beautiful. Two weeks of gold. Make the most of it. That's the Alaska lesson. That's the life lesson. Cook while the kitchen is warm. The cold is coming. But not yet.

The pinakbet I described above — the one with the kabocha squash and Lourdes’s windowsill bitter melon — is my version, the one shaped by what the farmer’s market had and what the Asian grocery carried and what my neighbor grows out of pure stubbornness against the climate. But the heart of it is a vegetable stew: simple, honest, each ingredient allowed to be itself. This Vegetable Stew recipe is the version I return to when I want that same grounding warmth without having to hunt down bitter melon — it carries the same spirit of letting vegetables do the work, which is what fall cooking, and maintenance, and being okay, is really all about.

Vegetable Stew

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium carrots, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 medium zucchini, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 cup butternut or kabocha squash, peeled and cubed
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, with juices
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish)

Instructions

1. Sauté aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
2. Build the base. Add carrots and celery to the pot and stir to combine with the onion and garlic. Cook for 3–4 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften slightly.
3. Add potatoes and squash. Stir in the potatoes and squash. Season with smoked paprika, thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper, tossing everything to coat evenly in the spices.
4. Add liquid and tomatoes. Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices and the vegetable broth. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low.
5. Simmer. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes and squash are nearly tender when pierced with a fork.
6. Add zucchini and green beans. Stir in the zucchini and green beans. Continue simmering uncovered for 10 more minutes, until all vegetables are tender but not mushy and the broth has thickened slightly.
7. Taste and finish. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh parsley. Serve hot, with rice or crusty bread alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 165 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 5g | Sodium: 480mg