Turnip time

Last week we found a nice surprise in our garden. Though our turnip greens are long gone, we checked underneath and found we had some nice turnips, some about the size of apples. Last year was the first time we had turnips to amount to anything.

At that time I wasn't really all that excited because I remembered that I wasn't too impressed with turnips when I was growing up, but I found a couple of recipes for roasted turnips and I thought it couldn't hurt to try them that way.

What I found was that I really love turnips baked with garlic. They were so delicious -- so much so that I will continue to cook my turnips that way from now on. My turnips were very sweet and delicious and different than I remember them. It could be the addition of the garlic or it might be that these turnips were grown without pesticides and with organic fertilizers.

This is how I prepared them.

I washed them and then peeled them. Then I peeled and chopped garlic.

I cut them in small pieces, lined a pan with parchment paper and oiled the paper with olive oil. Then I put all the cut up pieces of turnip and chopped garlic greens onto the parchment paper, added salt and pepper and poured about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over the top and stirred them a bit with a spatula. I then placed them into a 400 degree oven.

I stirred them about every 15 minutes and cooked them about 40 minutes until they were tender and browned on the edges.

Now I am very happy when we have turnips. I will never turn my nose up at another turnip again, especially a turnip baked to perfection like these.