To Market, To Market

[jedishampoo]

So where I work in downtown Indianapolis is right next to the City Market (which used to be a year-round produce/meat market), and on Wednesdays they have a Farmer's Market during my lunch hour. I LOVE the farmer's market! I've gone every Wednesday since midsummer, and I've scored Indiana-grown, organic fresh bouquets of flowers, as well as green beans, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, collards, eggplant, beets, etc., all in season and all fabulous. ::sigh::

Today I got lots of apples and... turnips! I've never eaten turnips!

Does anyone have any turnip recipes? Preferably vegetarian, of course?

These have the greens attached and I'm going to saute those like I do any other greens (fresh garlic, a little olive oil, NOM), but I have no idea what to do with the root parts. I found a recipe in one of my go-to books for turnip and chickpea casserole, but I'm looking for something maybe a little more plain-- i.e., when I have ultra-fresh vegetables, I like them cooked simply.

I also picked up PUMPKINS TO CARVE and a couple of butternut squash-- I normally don't eat squash, but I have a fabulous coconut-milk-curry-butternut squash-stew recipe. YUM!

Comments

[rroselavy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love turnips!

One thing you can do is cut them into 1" dice along with potatoes and carrots and/or parsnips toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them in the oven @ 375 for about an hour, stirring it up every 15 mins or so to brown evenly.

If they are small and thin-skinned, I wouldn't even pare them.

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

I've had another suggestion for roasting... and since I love to roast vegetables (especially with garlic and rosemary, mmm) I might try it! Thank you. :)

[minidrag33.livejournal.com]

I use turnips in beef stew. They are really good. YUM. sorry that is not vegetarian. :P

Fresh veggies! MMMMMmmmm. I love acorn squash. It is of the best things on earth to eat. Cut in half. Clean out the seed/stringy stuff inside. Butter the inside. Set in casserole dish cover with foil (cut sid up). Cook in oven for about an hour (put a little water in pan so does not dry out). When all is soft eat it out of the shell, like the shell is the bowl. Put a little brown sugar in it to taste. yum!

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

or instead of brown sugar honey or agave syrup is also good. And cinnamon. NOM NOM NOM.

If you check my recipe tags in my journal I have a recipe for a stuffed pie pumpkin that is probably illegal it's so good.

[minidrag33.livejournal.com]

That sounds good :) Yum!

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

I'm an agave-nectar convert-- I love that stuff. It's so awesome as a sweetener for tea. (I've been trying to avoid artificial sweeteners and refined sugar. Er, except in cereal, where sugar is mandatory!)

:) Thankya!

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

I've eaten those that way before! I think the only squash I really, really hate is zucchini, eww.

I'll bet turnips would work in any stew, even if it was beef-free? Hmmm...

Thank ya!

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

OMG I am so damn jealous. I used to wander through there about once a week and hit up alot of the foriegn shops and have lunch. I would KILL to have a farmers market or an affordable food co-op out here in bumfuck.

Turnips are very good roasted in the oven, usually with other veggies like potatos, onions and carrots. Since I usually do it with a pot roast.....not sure what you would do about a liquid or sauce, maybe just water or add some flavorings like onion/garlic bullion, miso, lemon..something like that.

I usually put them chopped into small cubes in vegetable soup.

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised you don't have more smaller markets out there in the summer! It's all small-town farmers that come to Indy... maybe 'cause there are more people to buy stuff.

I still have to visit!

[seshats-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, turnips!

I have two things I do with them.

One is 'turnip fries'. I peel and cut the turnips into fry shapes (like a beefsteak fry), toss with a little olive oil and seasonings like seasoning salt, or a bit of cayenne pepper, paprika, rosemary, etc...), and bake at 400F until they're a bit golden (probably 20 min). They taste good with ranch dressing to dip. Or ketchup.

The other thing I do is make a root vegetable curry. In a pot, I sauté chunked turnip, parsnip, carrot and rutabaga with some onion and garlic for about 15 minutes or so (enough to get the onions tender). Then I add garam masala, cumin, curry powder, turmeric, coriander, and maybe some allspice and a bit of cayenne powder. Then, I use chicken broth, but you could use veggie broth, and I let that simmer down for a while. Then, I add a can of stewed tomatoes and sometimes a can of pumpkin purée and let it reduce some more. If I need to, I can thicken it with some cornstarch, but usually, if you simmer it long enough, it thickens up on its own. It's good with a side of naan! ^_^

Bon appetit! ♥ (and if you try them, lemme know how you liked it, yeah?)

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, those are awesome spices for the fries-- I've had sweet potatoes like that (thanks to sharpeslass) but didn't know turnips would work that way, too.

And CURRY! I love curry.

Thank you, dear!

[teru-bozu-ebi.livejournal.com]

Throw them into any soup you make, pretty much... Or I like to peel and quarter them (depending on size) and roast them in the oven with other root veg and squashes and onions and the like. You coat them with olive oil, and stir them about every 20 minutes or so. Then you can eat them as a side, or puree them into a roasted winter veg soup.
You can probably tell, I like soups a lot...

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

People seem to agree that roasting them is tasty. I might try that for my first time out, turnip-eating. :)

I LOVE soup. I could eat soup all day, every day. People have to watch me around their homemade vegetarian soups, 'cause I'll keep going back for seconds until there isn't any left.

Thank you for your ideas!

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

When I grew turnips, my favorite thing was the simplest - I would quarter them if they were small, or cut them up if they were bigger, and either boil or steam them until they were tender, even tossing in the cut up greens with them, and just add real butter, salt and pepper, and knosh away - let them speak for themselves.

And one side-note from a Southern girl who ADORES collards... have you had a hard frost up there yet? Collards aren't really at their best until they have had at least one hard frost - they they achieve TRUE perfection. When I was doing all my Greek cooking, I was even known to substitute lovely collard greens for the grape leaves in Dolmathes - it worked wonderfully!

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

No, on the frost! In fact, the collards I got at the market were in... August? I haven't seen them since. Just some mustard greens lately. Huh! I'll have to look next week if we get a frost. :)

I love collards-- I pretty much love all greens, especially with lemon juice and garlic.

I've always wanted to try making dolmathes. Here in Indy it seems all the Greek restaurants make theirs with beef and rice, whereas in LV I found them vegetarian-style everywhere. :)

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

I've made the dolmathes both ways - both with meat and rice, and veggie with rice seasoned with lemon and tomato. Sometimes when I do the veggie version I do a mixture of rice and orzo (the tiny rice-sized pasta) to make it closer to a complete protein. But you can save some $$ using collards instead of buying the jarred grape leaves, and truthfully I like the taste and texture better, and they are easier to work with!

I love that icon, BTW - that's adorable. May I gank it?

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

Of course! Hee, it's from iconomicon, and he makes tons of brilliant icons. :)