Gumbo Aux Herbes

This week's veggie box yielded five or six bags of assorted leaves. That's too many. I usually have a hard time coming up with interesting things to do with radish greens and beet greens and chard and such, and I'm tired of sauteeing them with sausage and garlic and pine nuts for the umpteenth time. So this week I finally bit the bullet and tried this recipe for gumbo z'herbes, despite the low ratings and its rather boring appearance. It turned out very well and tasted savory and filling. I made some modifications as usual. My version went like this:

Greens:
Half a bag of tired week-old arugula
1 bag mustard greens
1 bunch radish greens
1 bunch beet greens
1 bag assorted dandelion, radicchio, escarole, etc.
Outer leaves from 1 head savoy cabbage
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme

4 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup flour
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion
1 medium carrot
2 tbsp paprika
A healthy dash of Tabasco
1 tbsp sea salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Cooked brown rice for serving

Melt the butter in a cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 45 minutes or so, until chestnut brown. (Mine got to peanut-butter brown or so and then seemed to stall out. Worked fine anyway.)

In the meantime, heat the chicken broth and water to a simmer in a large pot. Wash and chop up all the greens and add to the pot in order of toughness, cabbage first, and including oregano and thyme. Add the kidney beans and a few cloves of garlic.

Chop the onion and carrot. When the roux is brown enough, saute the onion and carrot in the cast-iron skillet with the roux until softened.

Stir the roux mixture into the greens pot by spoonfuls. Add paprika, Tabasco, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Taste and correct seasonings if necessary. Serve over rice.

This took about an hour or so the first time, probably less with subsequent attempts.