Two weeks ago, the very last farmers market of the year happened to fall on the same day as our final CSA veggie pick-up. I was thinking of this double whammy as rather tragic until Hurricane Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy (it's bad enough that they use these uber-generic names, must they also remove any remaining shred of dignity by reclassifying them as something as supremely clinical-sounding as a "post-tropical cyclone"?!), descended last Sunday. But the losses and devastation Sandy left in her wake gave me an injection of fresh perspective -- while sigh-worthy, the lack of fresh veggies pales in comparison to losing a home, a car, or even just electricity for more than a couple of days.
We were extremely fortunate -- barely even lost power and all the trees that might have fallen at our house had been taken down already. I am hoping for a speedy recovery for the millions who got walloped.
Meanwhile, that final CSA box left us with five pounds of truly gorgeous scarlet turnips that I was not sure what to do with... Scarlets are a mildly sweet variety of turnip that I'd never encountered before. So I turned to my favorite recipe resource, Food Blog Search and turned up this whimsically named recipe for a turnip "puff."
The ingredients looked appealing to me - I like the idea of adding brown sugar and nutmeg to play up the turnips' natural sweetness. And I certainly won't say no to anything that is topped with buttered breadcrumbs... It also looked pretty easy so I gave it a whirl.
I made a few small changes to Kitchen Parade's recipe, namely that I boiled the turnips with a potato since I'd read that this can help to remove any bitterness - then I mashed the potato along with the turnips (why not, right?) I also added a pinch of cinnamon and cloves to go along with the nutmeg. And after roughly mashing the turnips and potato, I added the rest of the ingredients and just used my immersion blender to blend it all together. The end result was nice - a hearty baked turnip mash that is mildly sweet and mildly spiced.
Turnip Puff (recipe via Kitchen Parade) Serves 4 Ingredients
Directions 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bring a medium sized pot of salted water to a boil. Peel the turnips or rutabagas and cut into roughly equal-size quarters and cook at a gentle boil until soft. 2. Mash the turnips or rutabagas in a large bowl - you can do this by hand, with an immersion blender or in a food processor. Add the eggs, butter, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, pepper and nutmeg and combine well. Transfer to a buttered casserole dish. 3. Combine the crumbs and butter and sprinkle evenly on top and bake until lightly browned on top, about 35-40 minutes. You might also like:
Two weeks ago, the very last farmers market of the year happened to fall on the same day as our final CSA veggie pick-up. I was thinking of this double whammy as rather tragic until Hurricane Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy (it's bad enough that they use these uber-generic names, must they also remove any remaining shred of dignity by reclassifying them as something as supremely clinical-sounding as a "post-tropical cyclone"?!), descended last Sunday. But the losses and devastation Sandy left in her wake gave me an injection of fresh perspective -- while sigh-worthy, the lack of fresh veggies pales in comparison to losing a home, a car, or even just electricity for more than a couple of days.
We were extremely fortunate -- barely even lost power and all the trees that might have fallen at our house had been taken down already. I am hoping for a speedy recovery for the millions who got walloped.
Meanwhile, that final CSA box left us with five pounds of truly gorgeous scarlet turnips that I was not sure what to do with... Scarlets are a mildly sweet variety of turnip that I'd never encountered before. So I turned to my favorite recipe resource, Food Blog Search and turned up this whimsically named recipe for a turnip "puff."
The ingredients looked appealing to me - I like the idea of adding brown sugar and nutmeg to play up the turnips' natural sweetness. And I certainly won't say no to anything that is topped with buttered breadcrumbs... It also looked pretty easy so I gave it a whirl.
I made a few small changes to Kitchen Parade's recipe, namely that I boiled the turnips with a potato since I'd read that this can help to remove any bitterness - then I mashed the potato along with the turnips (why not, right?) I also added a pinch of cinnamon and cloves to go along with the nutmeg. And after roughly mashing the turnips and potato, I added the rest of the ingredients and just used my immersion blender to blend it all together. The end result was nice - a hearty baked turnip mash that is mildly sweet and mildly spiced.
Turnip Puff (recipe via Kitchen Parade) Serves 4 Ingredients
Directions 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bring a medium sized pot of salted water to a boil. Peel the turnips or rutabagas and cut into roughly equal-size quarters and cook at a gentle boil until soft. 2. Mash the turnips or rutabagas in a large bowl - you can do this by hand, with an immersion blender or in a food processor. Add the eggs, butter, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, pepper and nutmeg and combine well. Transfer to a buttered casserole dish. 3. Combine the crumbs and butter and sprinkle evenly on top and bake until lightly browned on top, about 35-40 minutes. You might also like:
