Slow Cooker Root Vegetable Stew

May. The garden is growing. The Cherokee Purples are up past their cages and need tying. The pole beans are climbing. The Three Sisters bed is doing what it does. I have been visiting the garden every morning with Kai before school — ten minutes, check on things, note what needs attention, pull a weed or two. It is a practice I started as habit and which has become the best ten minutes of my day. The sky at six-thirty in late May in Oklahoma is a specific and unrepeatable thing. You look east toward the light and the garden is between you and it and the day has not decided yet what it is going to be.

I drove to Tahlequah on Saturday. Lily had asked me to come to the language program for a specific recording session — an elder from the Going Snake District, in her nineties, who was one of only a handful of people left who spoke the Going Snake dialect with full fluency. The session was two hours. I sat in the back of the room and watched this woman, ninety-one years old, describe how to prepare kanuchi in the Going Snake dialect. She spoke for thirty minutes about one dish. Lily recorded everything. The transcriptionists were working as she spoke.

At the end of the session the elder asked who had brought the food — someone had brought kanuchi, Lily's team had prepared it for the elder to eat while they talked about it. Lily pointed at me. The elder looked at me from across the room. She said something in Cherokee. Lily translated: "He makes it correctly." She was using a specific form of the word correctly that Lily says implies alignment with tradition, not just technical accuracy. She said: "Tell him the food is still alive."

I drove home with that in my chest for the whole two hours. The food is still alive. That is what Danny was trying to preserve when he taught me. That is what every elder who said close and right and correct was pointing toward. The food is still alive. I am going to keep making it.

When I got home from Tahlequah I did not want to do anything elaborate. I wanted to cook something that required time and attention and patience — something that would sit on the counter all afternoon and fill the house the way food is supposed to fill a house. This slow cooker root vegetable stew is what I made. It is not kanuchi. But it shares something with kanuchi: it asks you to treat simple ingredients with full respect, and it rewards that. I made it for Kai that evening and we ate it without saying very much, which is its own kind of conversation.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 7–8 hours | Total Time: 8 hours 20 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 medium turnip, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

Prep the vegetables. Peel and cut all root vegetables into uniform pieces so they cook evenly. Dice the onion and mince the garlic.
Layer the slow cooker. Add the potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnip, and celery to the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Scatter the onion and garlic over the top.
Add the liquids and seasonings. Whisk the tomato paste into the vegetable broth until dissolved. Pour over the vegetables along with the diced tomatoes and olive oil. Sprinkle in the thyme, rosemary, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Stir gently to combine.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours, until all the root vegetables are completely tender and the broth has thickened slightly.
Taste and adjust. Stir the stew, taste for seasoning, and add more salt or pepper as needed. If you prefer a thicker consistency, use the back of a wooden spoon to mash a few of the potato cubes against the side of the pot and stir them in.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and finish with fresh chopped parsley. Serve with good bread or on its own.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Root Vegetable Stew — The Food Is Still Alive