Potato/Turnip Mashup

Standard

Potatoes Beside Stainless Steel Cooking Pot

The neighbor gave the host family a bunch of turnips. (By “bunch, I mean about two dozen of varying sizes.) No one in the host family had any interest, so I felt obligated to find some use for them. My tooth was still giving me problems and was going to be pulled the next day, so I knew I needed very soft food. After looking at a few recipes online, I decided to do a mashed potato sort of dish with turnips added.

I went to the store and bought a 15 pound bag of potatoes. I didn’t need that many potatoes, but per pound, the 15 pound sack was the best buy. I guess I’ll be eating a lot of potatoes in the weeks to come. That’s ok. I’ll need soft food for a while.

In addition, I bought a box of vegetable broth, a large yellow onion, butter, and milk. (I also bought a carton of half-price chocolate ice cream, but that’s not part of this recipe.)

In the host family’s kitchen, I got out two large stockpots. I threw a couple tablespoons of butter in each pot and let it melt and get a brown, but not burn. While the butter was melting, I chopped the onion very fine. I threw half of the onion in each pot, and cut the potatoes and turnips I had scrubbed.

I didn’t peel either the potatoes or the turnips. I don’t usually peel potatoes for mashed potatoes or potato soup. The peels don’t bother me, and I’ve been told they offer added nutrition and fiber. According to http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/skin-potato-really-vitamins-5378.html, “The skin [of a potato] contains 5 grams of fiber, and you’ll get 2 grams of fiber from the flesh.” Also,

It doesn’t represent the amount of skin and flesh you would get in one whole potato, but another way to compare them is by considering an equal amount of each. One hundred grams of skins, which is about equal to the skin from two potatoes, has double the amount of seven nutrients, five times more riboflavin, seven times the calcium and 17 times more iron than the same amount of flesh. You would get the same amount of vitamin C from equal portions of the skin and flesh. By comparison, 100 grams of flesh is about two-thirds of a whole potato.

But if potato peels bother you in mashed potatoes or potato soup, by all means, peel your potatoes.

I didn’t know if I needed to peel the turnips, so I didn’t. I think the turnips had less of a peel than the potatoes did.

After reading other recipes for turnips and potatoes together, I kept the potato to turnip ratio about 3 to 1. (Since the turnips have a stronger taste, you need to use more potatoes, unless you want your dish to taste strongly of turnips. If that’s what you want, it’s fine with me.)

Once the onions were very soft and translucent, I added the scrubbed and chopped potatoes and turnips right on top of the onions. I made sure to leave enough room in the stockpot to add plenty of liquid. Once the potatoes and turnips were in the stockpots, I added about half a box of vegetable broth to each pot. (You can use chicken broth if you prefer.) Next I added water until the potatoes and turnips were totally covered. Then I let the potatoes and turnips boil until both were very soft.

At this point, a lot of the water had boiled away in one of the stockpots, so I was able to get all of the potatoes and turnips in one pot. I didn’t pour everything together, because I had more liquid than I needed. (I saved extra liquid for cooking whatever may need liquid to cook in later.) I mashed up all the root vegetables, and added milk as the concoction needed thinning. I left it pretty thick, but if I’d wanted to, I could have thinned it even more, until it was more like a thick potato soup. I added more butter to the whole pot, but added salt to each individual serving I ate.

It was pretty good. The turnips added an extra, unusual flavor kick, but did not dominate the dish. Eating the mashup did not hurt my mouth.

Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/potatoes-beside-stainless-steel-cooking-pot-45247/.

 

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

3 Responses »

  1. While I’m not a fan of turnips, I do like potatoes in just about all forms, except mashed. And I like the skins in! Thanks for the mash-up 🙂

    • I can’t really say I’m a fan of turnips either. I don’t think I would ever sit down and eat a big plate of turnips, unless I was really really really really really really really hungry. So when there was a bounty of turnips, I had to find something to do with them. I wouldn’t go out and buy turnips to make this dish. If there were no turnips, I’d just make potatoes.

      My other recent favorite potato recipe is to microwave or bake a couple or three (depending on their size and your hunger) potatoes. Once cooked, crumble/mash them up, add some butter, crumbly white cheese, salt (or better yet, Bragg’s liquid aminos), and a small (peeled, seed removed) avocado. Mix it all together and eat. Good stuff!

I'd love to know what you think. Please leave a comment.