Recipes

[Natureluvr]

Please disregard my post above. I realized my recipe was for parsnips not turnips. 🤦🏻‍♀️

[On It]

@maximillian We really like turnips. I peel and cut them up into large cubes, triangles, etc.,  like potatoes are sometimes done. I just do not slice them. I cover them with water, put a tiny bit of butter to prevent boiling over, cover, and cook until tender. Test with a fork like you do potatoes. I add no seasoning or salt because of my acid reflux issues. Turnips are full of flavor and do not need help. We eat them often in the fall and winter.

My grandmother grew her own turnips in her fall garden with other root vegetables. She cooked the green leaves and made turnip greens. The correct maturity of those is difficult to find in today's grocery store. I think she thinned planted turnips (so the turnips could grow) and cooked the greens when they were quite tender. I have never had frozen or canned turnip greens that tasted like hers from the garden.

[RedTop]

My dads favorite way to eat them was raw with salt.  Both grandmothers served them boiled and mashed like mashed potatoes, boiled as a vegetable medley with potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips, parboiled for a few quick minutes in salt water then drained and fried in a hot skillet with bacon fat, as well as oven roasted with beef or pork roasts, celery, onions, carrots and potatoes.  

@wagirl 

Yes you either scrape or peel the outer skin of a turnip, like a potato.  Yes, they will get mushy if overcooked.  

[Thats Me]

If you have an immersion blender you can roast a variety of root vegetables like carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, sweet potato, onion, and, if I recall, green apple, tossed in a little olive oil with pepper and salt; and then purée them with stock in a large pot. I've made this before but it was a long time ago and I can't find the recipe. But it is so fantastic and really it's not hard. Once you've roasted the veggies you add them with stock to a large pot and blend with your immersion blender. I need to make this again! 

[Etoile308]

@Kachina624, I like rutabagas but I don't like peeling them. Told myself the last time would be the last time. That is until I see some nice ones in the store.

I use to combine turnips and rutabagas for some color.

[AuntMame]

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@On It wrote:

@maximillian We really like turnips. I peel and cut them up into large cubes, triangles, etc.,  like potatoes are sometimes done. I just do not slice them. I cover them with water, put a tiny bit of butter to prevent boiling over, cover, and cook until tender. Test with a fork like you do potatoes. I add no seasoning or salt because of my acid reflux issues. Turnips are full of flavor and do not need help. We eat them often in the fall and winter.

My grandmother grew her own turnips in her fall garden with other root vegetables. She cooked the green leaves and made turnip greens. The correct maturity of those is difficult to find in today's grocery store. I think she thinned planted turnips (so the turnips could grow) and cooked the greens when they were quite tender. I have never had frozen or canned turnip greens that tasted like hers from the garden.

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Fresh turnips from the garden taste wonderful, and usually so much better than what's in the grocery store. 

We had a subscription to a local community-supported agriculture farm and would receive a slew of turnips every summer. They were wonderful! Fresh and all the different heirloom varieties!

I think grocery store produce consists of mostly mass-produced produce, varieties that will still look good on the shelves after enduring the bumps and assaults of produce packaging, and being shipped hundreds of miles. Varieties not cultivated for taste. Bland-tasting vegetable varieties. 

I hadn't been a turnip lover, but receiving them from our CSA farm convinced me. 

[Lilysmom1]

@Kachina624 .What I am eating lately is rutabaga.  I prefer turnip.  There has been a "woody" taste of late which is not a good thing.  Apparently this is the reason...

The quality and flavor of rutabagas are much improved when the roots are fully matured and are exposed to frosts before harvest. Immature roots have a bitter taste, and if early seeded rutabagas are left in the field until late fall, the roots tend to become fibrous and woody.

Here is the difference between the two...

Although they are both members of the brassica family, the rutabaga is believed to be a hybrid of a turnip and a cabbage; whereas a turnip is, well, just a turnip.

The first and most obvious difference you may notice is the size, rutabagas are harvested when they are large, whereas turnips are harvested while they are still small. Another way to differentiate between them is through their colour. Turnips are generally white with a purple gradient toward the top, while rutabagas are yellow with a brown or purple-brown tinge toward the top. 

Flavour-wise, rutabagas are sweeter than turnips, which have a sharper flavour. As well, when cooked, the turnip will remain white, but the rutabaga will become a vibrant gold colour.

My father used to dig up turnips in winter for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner so he must have known about the touch of frost.

[ECBG]

I would look on you tube.

Congrats!

[Zhills]

We always ate the turnip greens when they were young and seldom got roots of any size.  Loved to get some to cook in the greens.  

Never used the turnip roots by themselves.  Gotta try them!