Hearty Winter Stew

Usually when I flip through recipes, if there is an ingredient that I don't recognize, I breeze on by and don't even consider making it. Well, I was craving a bit of a vegetable stew this weekend and I found this recipe in a Vegetarian Williams-Sonoma cookbook that I have. I have never made anything out of this cookbook because every recipe sounds dramatically time consuming and each has at least one ingredient that I have never used. This one has THREE! I went to two grocery stores and had to ask for help both times. Parsnips (long skinny carrot shapes), celeriac (v. ugly celery root, looks like a clump of dirt) and sunchokes. I was unable to find sunchokes and ended up using turnip and sweet potato instead. The result was v. tasty and filling.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a stock pot, add the following and cook for 5 minutes on medium until onion is translucent.
1 yellow onion (chopped)
1 stalk celery (chopped)
1 carrot (chopped)
2TBL olive oil

Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half, approximately 5 minutes.
1C dry white wine

Add the stock, bring to a boil, add the herbs and barley, reduce to medium and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes
6C vegetable stock (I added several cups more stock due to mile high cooking)
1/2C pearled barley
1/4C fresh parsley (chopped)
2tsp fresh thyme or 2TBL dried (chopped)

Chop the following and add to the stew and simmer on medium for 20 more minutes.
3 parsnips (peeled and diced)
1 celeriac (peeled and diced)
1/2lb Jerusalem artichoke (aka Sunchoke, I used turnip instead)

Chop the following into 1" cubes, toss with oil, sprinkly with sea salt and roast on a baking sheet for 40-50 minutes. Add to the stew and you are ready to serve it.
1 potato
1 sweet potato (optional)
1 red onion
1-2TBL olive oil
sea salt