turnips

my obsession with turnips goes back several years to when i decided not to eat some heavily fertilized turnips grown in a field as deer bait and instead decided to grow my own (organically). they grow great in mississippi although the root (the turnip itself) never got big enough to eat due to the high clay content of the soil in the garden.

in cooking with turnips, i have learned that are different from potatoes (despite both being roots). turnips tend to absorb a lot of water when cooked with a wet method. boiling them waterlogs them the most. last night i steamed them (two turnips, about a pound between them, peeled, diced) and they were much better. quite plain and mushy- not like the starchy potato in the same situation- but nice and bitter. i went on to add S&P, a little butter, and a tiny bit of milk to make mashies. really tasty (with pork chop and green beans) but without the creamy and cohesive properties of mashed potatoes. in the future, i will experiment with steaming half potatoes and half turnips and mashing them together.

several days ago i roasted the same amount of turnips. this involved tossing in 1-2 T olive oil with S&P, garlic powder, and some other spices then baking at 350 for about 45 minutes. these were delicious and really good with the ham i had from arkansas.