I was sent on a mission today: figure out how to make
something with turnips. Something that actually tastes good. Something that we can type out on recipe cards and hand to customers who buy them at the Wilson's on Saturday. They have very generously allowed us to sell our loose-leaf lettuce, turnips, and spinach at their farm pick-up day on Sat. So what is a girl to do who only has a vague idea of what a turnip is used for? I recollected (somewhere in the files of my brain) that you cooked the leafy tops and ate them like regular greens. So far so good. But everyone knows that. The only other inkling I had was that in some AmericanGirl book, the heroine refused to eat her "orange mashed turnips". I am wondering why her's were orange: ours are purple on the outside and white inside! :) So I did a Google search, and I came up with some interesting facts: you can use turnips in any recipe in which potatoes are called for, you can use it instead of cabbage in coleslaw, and it has cancer-fighting nutriets! Yay for that strange vegetable! So I set out to make two recipes, for better or for worse....."Turnip Oven-Fries", and "Mashed Turnips". Sound good? Here's what I did:
Washed, peeled, and cut up the turnips: some I chunked, (to boil) the others I sliced thinly like potatoes. I tossed the thin ones in olive oil, and laid them out on a tray. The others went into a pot of boiling water. Here's a picture of the chunked ones:
The oven-turnips baked at 425 F. for 20 minutes or so, and the stove ones just got the dickens boiled out of them. I like to boil my potatoes to mash until they are nearly falling apart, so I did the turnips the same way.
Back to the oven-turnips: When they were done, I salted them, and had everyone try the finished product: it tasted sort of like sweet potato fry, if you have ever had those. Sort of sweet and mild at the same time. Here is a picture!
Here they are. Aunt Christy added the spinach to the side in lieu of curly kale. :)
Then for the mashed turnips---I strained the water away from them, smushed them up with a pastry-cutter, (I did NOT feel like taking out our whole Bosch thing and doing it the right way! :) and added salt, pepper, butter, and our goat-milk. Yum! They tasted pretty good, if not exactly like real mashed potatoes. I found that they were a bit more wet than potatoes, and a tad bit stringy-ish and lumpy. But that could have been because I didn't use a mixer! Here are a couple pictures of those! :)
Here is a far-away-ish picture. I am dealing once again with our addle-pated camera, so bear with me. We'll call the darkness of the picture "Art" and leave it at that!
And once again, my hand stars in the post. I believe that is all ya'll have seen of me! :) hee-hee. Well, hope this turnip-y post is not too dull! If I were anything like Winnie-the-Pooh, I would have made up a "hum" by now, because "turnip' is a promising sort of word that deserves a rhyme or something! ;) -Rachel
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