Starry Wisdom

After a fairly long hiatus, I’ve rejoined the CSA (well, I’m splitting it with Mackenzie – and we’ve changed the pickup to the place near her apartment since it has much better hours than the one 2 blocks from me – but which is inaccessible to someone who works normal business hours). I’ve been eating a lot more vegetables since rejoining, which is good, and I’ve also been cooking a bit more.

It being winter, turnips are in season, so we’ve been getting them in every box. Until recently they were small salad turnips, which are nice because you can eat them raw OR cooked, but those are now grown up to bigger cooking turnips. But this begs the question – how do you cook a turnip? I’d like to provide a simple, delicious recipe:

Maple Braised Turnips
Serves 2-4 as a side dish
(Adapted from Vegetables Everyday by Jack Bishop)

note: the original recipe was half carrots and half turnips – feel free to substitute carrots back in, or replace the turnips with them completely – however the carrots do not need to be browned before the simmering)

1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 lb turnips peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
1/3 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon maple syrup
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

1. Melt the butter in a large saute pan. Add the turnips and cook, turning occasionally until lightly browned (about 8 minutes).
2. Add the carrots, stock, maple syrup, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pan, reduce the heat, and simmer until soft, about 20 minutes
3. Remove the cover, raise the heat to high, and cook until the liquid in the pan reduces to a thick glaze, about 2 minutes.

I thought I had a picture of this, but alas, my camera says NO.