Tag Archives: epicurious

Produce Bucket: Turnips

October 21, 2019

I feel a little bit like this “produce bucket” series is just a bunch of root veggies that I have no idea what to do with. It isn’t that turnips are bad, they just tend to be treated like an uninspiring root that can be swapped out with anything else. I often found roasted with a bunch of other roots under a roast (or vegan “roast”). It is also guilty of following the recipe patterns of other root staples, fries, simple roasting, latkes, chips, or the dreaded mashed recipe.

These are all fine and dandy, I am sure shredding turnip and frying it like a latke tastes awesome. But I always like to have interesting and creative recipes to try out. So let’s start with some basics:

Produce Spotlight: The Ultimate Guide to Turnips

After finding this website with their detailed information about kohlrabi, I figured I would swing by to check out if they had one on turnips. They did! The page gives you everything you might be asking, do they give gas? are they healthy/starchy/high carb? what do they taste like? what’s up with these greens? A quick little TLDR; is that rutabaga (or swedes) are NOT turnips. They are very similar and probably could be switched out quite easily if in a jam but you might need to adjust cooktimes.

Why bother eating your turnip? Why don’t you spend lots of time making it into a lantern! How could I not mention this since it is so close to Halloween?! Before pumpkins were available in Europe, people would carve faces into turnips. If you are not sure if it is worth the effort, I will say they do look terrifying!

Soup

Leek and Cannellini Bean Soup
This might not be the most soul inspiring soup mix. Cool white beans and leeks, but I do always get leeks from my CSA. Plus, I think I’ve been a little bit of an ignorant jerk with leeks. But I like the idea of a simple soup using turnips instead of starchy potatoes. The soup isn’t vegan, but easy to change. Use veggie stock and take away the cheese.

Chickpea, Turnip, and Lemon Soup
The hipster foodie in me is a little bit of a sucker of anything with lemon and chickpeas in the title. Who knows why. This soup does sound like a perfect cozy soup, maybe served with bread for dinner, or made for lunches for the week. Half of the soup gets blended to make a thicker broth, but still leaving chickpea and turnip chunks to munch on.

Soup Joumou (Haitian Beef and Pumpkin Soup)
Is this soup vegan? Um…. clearly not. But it looks fairly easy to veganize if you sub the beef for either a fake meat like seitan or something simple like beans. The best part? It is a great soup to make during the October/Fall season when you have a few hot summer veggies producing in the fields, and some root veggies starting to come in. I easily have almost all the ingredients in my house right now.

Salad

Cabbage with White Beans, Turnip, and Pecorino
Again not a vegan dish, but you can easily sub the pecorino with some sort of vegan parmesan. I love these type of quick side dishes in the winter. Making a casserole? Baked tofu? Quickly cook this up while the dinner is in the oven.

Farro Salad with Turnips and Greens
If you are lucky enough to get turnips AND the greens this would be a great dish to make. I love these grain salads as they are filling and a great way to eat a whole grain.

Shaved Rutabaga and Turnip Salad with Scallions
I found quite a few “faux potato” salad recipes, which seemed like it might be pretty tasty to eat turnips. But I liked the look of this dish, even though it doesn’t have a mayo-like base, it makes me think of some of the oil and vinegar based potato salads. Nice and light side, that would be great to pair with some of the heavier winter dishes.

Sides

Miso Glazed Turnips
There have been a few recipes that mix together miso and turnips. It sounds like it would be a yummy way to add more flavor to this mild root. This recipe uses butter, but just use some oil of choice or some vegan butter.

Lo Bak Gou: Cantonese Turnip Cake
I’ve first became aware of these cakes from Susan as she usually gets a turnip cake when eating out at Chinese restaurants. I had never heard of it before, so I made it using a recipe from the V Street cookbook. Even though the name says Turnip Cake, it is usually made with daikon radish. But it makes my kitchen super stinky, so maybe I will try it with all turnip this time.

Turnips and Greens with Cashew Cream Sauce
Another recipe that uses turns AND their greens. I like how it is tossed in a cashew cream sauce, making it like those “faux potato salads” I said actually sounded nice.

Turnip Puff
This recipe is not vegan, and I am not sure how vegan-izable it will be. But it is TOTALLY speaking to me! I’ve tried it once with rutabaga, and honestly I have to try again soon. So this recipe sits here as inspiration for turnips. And if you are on this page and aren’t vegan- MAKE THIS AND TELL IF IT IS AWESOME! It just seems like such a great recipe for a Thanksgiving or holiday table.

Beet and Turnip Gratin
Beets are usually sitting in my fridge and I can’t figure what to do with them. I just get lazy, and maybe I just have this weird thing about roots? Anyways, this dish looks REALLY pretty! And pretty much vegan. Just use veggie stock and a vegan butter (or oil, or vegan magic)

Mains

Crispy Turnip and Bean Balls
These are super simple, only 4 ingredients plus salt. So I am really interested to see how they taste. But honestly, they just look so yummy. And they look like a quick and easy dish to make when serving with other sides and grains.

Turnip Veggie Burgers
This burger just looks crazy. Like in a good way. Perhaps burger isn’t the best word, maybe just sandwich is best way to describe it. I know there are so many people who scoff at the term burger being used for anything other than beef. The bulk is just rice and turnips, and a BUTT LOAD OF HERBS. They topped it with some fancy pickles and a tahini like spread, and it just sounds yummy.

Bean Bake with Greens and Turnip
Truthfully, I think this recipe will tank. Looking at the ingredients, just doesn’t give me a sense of confidence. BUT I find the idea great. Some classic baked beans (the tomato-y kind, not the sweet Boston kind) and topping it with some thinly sliced turnip that serve as a little roasted layer.

Desserts

Turnip Bake
Yes, I’ve even managed to find some desserts that use turnips. The first recipe isn’t very pretty, to be honest. But it is sort of like a cobbler, part turnips-part apple. Honestly, I am not 100% sure if it is suppose to be a sweet treat, some veggie sides I find WAY too sweet (hello sweet potato casseroles)

Eastham Turnip Pie
There were a few turnip cakes out there, and honestly they are simple enough to make. Just sub any cooked mashed veggies for turnip. But pie? That’s another story. The recipe isn’t vegan, but I am sure you could sub some aquafaba, and the cream for a store bought creamer or homemade cashew cream. I tried making a similar recipe by using the pumpkin pie recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky and it didn’t work. But I refuse to give up! I will try it one more time, sticking to this recipe a little more closely. And no, this isn’t hipsters gone crazy, it is a traditional dish. There is even a pie made with rutabaga.

Anyone has a favorite way to eat turnips?

Posted by Jennifer in All About the Ingredient Tags: bon appetit, epicurious, fine cooking, food and wine, food52, healthy and seasonal recipes, kitchen konfidence, Merry about Town, My Recipes, naturally ella, new england, pickled plum, produce bucket, turnip, turnips, vegan sandra

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Blog Recipe Round Up: Tacos

December 6, 2017

Oh boy are there a million tacos out there! We are just barely scratching the surface with what’s out there. And even though they are all over pinterest, I think this was one of the hardest compilations to get together. Why? I think tacos are just way too easy to stray away from the original recipe. But I did it! So check out the recipes below!

Falafel Tacos with Sriracha-Tahini Sauce

This recipe is actually an amazing weeknight meal. Aside from my kitchen being so small that taking out the food processor is a pain, it is a super meal. All you need to dirty up is really the food processor, a baking tray, and cutting board. And while the falafels bake, you can clean up most of the dishes. Brilliant! The dinner made pretty much spot on what it would make- granted if you eat only two tacos. That can be hard since they are so tasty, but two tacos has 16 grams of protein. Not too bad considering my husband at three- which would be 24 grams of protein. Downside, I think the sriracha-tahini sauce was a little too thick, but then again I was getting to the bottom of tahini where they was very little oil.

Bottom Line: Quick and easy weeknight dinner

Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos

There’s been a lot of hub-bub with Thug Kitchen and if their writing is mocking African Americans. Although I find the juxtaposition of harsh language in a medium that uses flower language funny, I do think they could of done it without singling out a certain culture. I never really intended to check out Thug Kitchen, but I found this really yummy recipe that I just wanted to try badly.

Did the recipe hold up? Umm…no. The salsa was pretty darn spicy. Which to me isn’t too big of a deal except there was a lot of hot sauce in the cauliflower portion. I like it when you divide the heat up within certain ingredients, not piling on everything hot. The cauliflower was very watery from the beer, which makes me wondering if it would of worked better as sort of a “refried” cauliflower filling? And overall there were WAY too much onion flavor. I didn’t even use as much as they recommend since I didn’t have them, like adding more green onions!

There were some great flavor combos, but there should of been more finessing with the cooking process. Maybe saute the onions in the cauliflowers, only spice in the salsa, etc. Overall it isn’t bad though.

Bottom Line: Alright recipe, needs more streamlining.

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Sweet Potato Pecan Tacos

There is so much flavor going on with these tacos. They are easy to make and great for a more fall based taco when sweet potatoes are in season and when the temperature is going down (to turn the oven on). The great thing about the recipe is that the author is very open to variations so I did and found ways to improve the taco.

One thing I found needed improvement in the recipe is the texture. She has a smooth bean spread and soft sweet potatoes that probably have a nice outside texture from roasting. BUT I felt like it needed a little extra tooth, and adding quick pickled shredded cabbage I think did the trick. Avocados are also a major must as well, if it is in your price range.

I loved the flavor from the coconut cream, but it seemed more like something that would be great as a dressing. The blog post does suggest that this dish makes a great salad, so maybe I missed the memo that the cream was just suppose to be a dressing? Maybe, maybe not. But I wouldn’t bother with it unless you want to make a salad over a taco.

Bottom Line: Super yummy, but needs a lettuce or cabbage paired with it.

Black Bean + Tempeh Tacos with Cashew Cheese Sauce

This recipe is pretty easy and fast to make. What is both nice and disappointing about this recipe is how flexible it is. There aren’t any specifically highlighted flavors, which I tend to like from a taco recipe. But it does give a recipe for a very flexible taco filling that you can pretty much do any day of the week. Don’t have avocado? You’ll be fine. Don’t have cabbage? Just use lettuce. So I could imagine using this recipe as a basic structure to make on a busy weeknight.

I did NOT make the cashew cheese sauce mostly because I had some homemade vegan sour cream that needed to get used up. But the recipe for the cashew cheese sauce looks pretty good, and would of made a great addition to the tacos. Overall I think this is a recipe I might use again, it only took about 15 minutes to make. And as mentioned it is pretty flexible for interpretation, and she makes sure you still get your greens.

Bottom Line: Great recipe for starter vegans.

Tequila Lime Baked Tofu Tacos with Chipotle Crema

This recipe involves a lot of planning, but overall pretty easy. What takes the most amount of time is freezing the tofu, thawing it, pressing, then marinating. None of those steps take particularly long, but you need to think ahead. I think most vegans don’t know how to plan these steps since these are mostly common for meats. But I found that I froze the tofu one day, the next day remove and let thaw in the fridge. Then the day of making I pressed for an hour (it wasn’t fully thawed at the time), and marinated it before heading into work. That way it took a 30 minutes to bake giving lots of prep and clean up time.

BUT I do have a problem with the recipe. Although it was easy to make, there wasn’t nearly enough fat. The overall result was super acidic, but I wish she put a little oil in the marinade, or used cashews for the crema. Aside from that, I was totally happy with the results. There was a little extra of tofu for leftovers (hubs and I had three tacos each) so if you have a big family, you might want to double the tofu.

Bottom Line: Needs a little more fat, but tasty overall

BBQ Eggplant Tacos

Hmm… how do I feel about these tacos. So many emotions. First let me talk about prep work. It is pretty easy. I spent most of the time working on the peach-lime chutney. It wasn’t too hard, but it does involve a lot of fine chopping, so it was probably a total of 30-40 minutes, but worth noting there was lots of time to do other things. In fact I made the fennel slaw while the chutney cooked up. So all I had to do was roast the eggplant and put together the tacos when it came to dinner time. Dividing up the work makes the clean up more manageable.

Flavors have been interesting. I can’t say I hate and I can’t say I love it. My husband summed it up as minty and fruity. I think we both weren’t huge fans of the mix of fennel and peach. I think I might want to “dilute” the fennel by adding a little cabbage next time. Also I didn’t like how the eggplant “shredded.” I mean it kind-of did, but it was mostly just mushy shreds. I would probably just use beans or jackfruit in the future.

And it is worth noting that I had uneven amounts of food. I get it- when your recipe calls for one fennel bulb and mostly nothing else, you are going to have varied amounts. I ended up with a full little jam jar of the chutney. We had NO eggplant leftover, and there was enough slaw for maybe one two extra tacos. Not the worst, but something to keep in mind if you hate leftovers.

Bottom Line: Lots of prep, mixed emotions