Tomato, Corn, Green Lima, and Okra Soup

I enjoyed growing vegetables, but okra was never my favorite—I don’t like the smell. Iinclude this recipe because it was our family favorite. My momma never made me eat it if Ididn’t want to, thankfully.

A note from Ellen:

Vegetable broth’s an easy swap for chicken broth in this recipe, making it entirely vegan, but I’m printing it just as Sallie Ann wrote it. I want to do right by the Gullah Diva, and besides, as Amethyst writes, “I’m proud to cook and eat what my ancestors and elders ate.”

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Course Soup

Ingredients

¼ cup vegetable or olive oil
1 to 1½ large onions diced
1 quart chicken stock or water
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons dried or chopped fresh basil
10 to 12 large tomatoes diced; or 2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 to 2 cups whole corn kernels cut from the cobs
1 to 2 cups fresh or frozen green lima beans
1 pound fresh okra stemmed and cut into 3 pieces each

Instructions

In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat, add the onions, and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the salt, pepper, and basil, then stir in the tomatoes, corn, and lima
beans. Cover and continue to cook over medium-high heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the vegetables are tender.
Stir in the okra, decrease the heat to medium-low, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the okra is tender. Serve hot.

Notes

From Sallie Ann Robinson's Kitchen: Food and Family Lore from the Lowcountry by Sallie Ann Robinson. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, September 2019. Reprinted with permission.

Photo by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn