Beets and Turnips and Carrots (Oh my!)

I KNOW, cheesy title.  But we tried a couple recipes with beets and turnips this week--a challenge for me.




(Despite my lack of love for the beet, I can appreciate it's beauty.  Isn't a golden beet pretty?)


I'll be honest, I just really don't enjoy beets (red or golden, though golden are much milder and therefore, in my opinion, better).  And now I know I don't enjoy raw turnips.  I cooked a gratin using turnips (which I talked about in an earlier post), and they were great in that.  I have candied red beets in an orange/balsamic reduction to throw in a salad (which I found tolerable, thank you goat cheese).  But this week, before cooking the beets and turnips, we tried them raw in a salad.

So, since I promise to paint an accurate picture of our adventures with the Farm Share, here you go: it can sometimes be a challenge.

The other night we had a meal that consisted of a salad (raw carrots, turnips, and golden beets on a bed of baby arugula with balsamic dressing) and wheat berry pilaf (pilaf recipe in previous post).  The arugula, carrots, beets, turnips, and wheat berries were all from our Farm Share.


The salad was actually really good and I ate the whole thing, I just found myself eating the turnips and beets with as much arugula I could fit on the fork.

The carrots were, of course, delicious!  And the wheat berry pilaf was really good.













Despite my distaste for raw beets and turnips, all was not lost on the remainder of our beet and turnip supply.  Tonight we boiled the beets and turnips along with some potatoes.  Once soft, I puréed the turnips and beets in a food processor and added them to mashed potatoes.  The finished product was delicious!  And we used all the beets and turnips (and potatoes) we had from our Farm Share.

So, while turnips and beets are adverse to my personal tastes, we made it work--and enjoyed the challenge along the way (and the rewards at the end).

(My pictures all have a yellow tint...sorry about that!)