The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Root Vegetable Edition

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! As our longtime readership (basically JCC and another IP address) is aware, our contribution to the great Orphans Thanksgiving Potluck consists of pumpkin pie and Laura's fantastic mashed rutabagas.

Ready...

The two smaller roots are from our friend Josh's garden in West Virginia. Overall this year the rutabagas are smaller and I hope I got enough to go around. Our local Harris-Teeter switched produce suppliers and there have been murmurs of discontent in the neighborhood, although their eggplant remains outstanding.

Set...

Cubed rutabagas await the boiling process. Better stop watching the pot.

Go!

Boil, boil, boil and bubble, filling the house with a great earthy smell in the process.

Not shown: the food-processing and final butter/seasoning application. I was advised that it was a "critical moment" and, as an avowed Kitchen Nazi, I removed myself from the viciinity.

I have just taste-tested the finished product and they are as wonderful as always.

As for the pumpkin pie, I was considering trying the America's Test Kitchen "foolproof" recipe (although I am a great fool) but decided not to at the last minute, as I had never tried it before and Thanksgiving is not the time for radical innovation. However, I did adopt their trick of using vodka instead of water when making the dough, so we'll see how that goes. (In the crust, silly.) Credit for moral support this year goes to Bryan, who not only helped mix the filling but watched quietly as one crust gave me grief on the pastry cloth. Thanks to him I did not fling it across the room, but that pie will definitely be of the "hold your applause" variety. As for the new recipe, I think I will bake more pies and try it out before November rolls around next year.

Enjoy the day, everyone!

The Return of Rutablogging

Long-time readers of this blog know of our seasonal focus on massive root vegetables and the preparation thereof. Here now our photoessay on this year's rutabagas.

Cornurutabagacopia!

Peeled and cubed:

On the boil while our stove transmits coded messages that we will ignore as long as the burners work:

Here we see much of the rutabaga lifecycle, from post-boil draining, to the addition of butter, to finished product:

Kudos as always to Laura, who also delivered a morale-boosting speech at a critical pie-making moment yesterday ("We shall bake them on the beaches...").

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Seventh Annual Rutablogging

As I write this the preparation of mashed rutabagas is well under way in the kitchen. Laura has completed the initial peeling of the cannonballs rutabagas and the next step is cutting them into chunks for boiling. I am on call in case my version of brute force is necessary, augmented this year by a small crosscut saw. (I didn't think the hacksaw would, so to speak, cut it.)

Pictures and updates to come!

Update: The rutabagas are done and ready for the masses. As it turns out, the enormous pale rutabagas I got this year were easier to cut than the usual ones, and that combined with our newer, more powerful food processor made for a relatively easy process.

I'll post pics of the cooking sequence later. Happy Thanksgiving!

Update Update: As promised, pictures!

First, the peeled rutabagas. To crib from EMM, they're real and they're spectacular:

Next, the cubing! This takes a toll on the hands...

Ready to boil...

Then puree in our (relatively) new and (absolutely) more powerful food processor:

They were fantastic! Thanks Laura!

Pumpkin Pie Post-Factoblogging

Every year I make two pumpkin pies for the Orphans Thanksgiving our family (not to mention EMM, JWT, CRH, and JJV) attends.

Making pie crust is always stressful for me, but when your mom is a home economist by training AND makes the world's best pie crust, there is a tradition to uphold.

Usually the result is, to drop modesty for a moment, pretty good, although I will defer to those Orphans on the masthead and the commentariat, but it is not without the aesthetic drawbacks of the various patches reflecting the titanic struggle involved in transferring the crust from the pastry cloth to the pan. I call the result "Frankencrust."

However, this time there was almost no tearing and almost no swearing involved, and the pies are now cooling on the stove.

Tomorrow night, though, is the main event: the Seventh Annual Rutablogging! This will feature my first use of a hacksaw in a kitchen environment. Stay tuned!

Sixth Annual (Delayed) Rutablogging

We have had quite the busy Thanksgiving here, so the annual tribute to our favorite root vegetable is overdue.

This year we had hoped to use some of our own crop in preparing one of our contributions to the Thanksgiving gathering. While our rutabagas certainly were high achievers in terms of foliage, they came up a bit short in the actual root category. Here we see the Canadian rutabagas I bought at the grocery store, with our largest domestic product lounging seductively in front.

Despite the fact that these were some of the largest rutabagas I have seen, they are far outgrown this year by Fiona and Bryan. Raven seems skeptical.

After much peeling, chopping and boiling, Laura turned the waxy tubers into a highlight of the Thanksgiving meal. I am, as always, thankful for her especially, for our kids, for raven, and for all our friends with whom we spent a delightful holiday. Now grab your credit cards and pepper spray and get shopping!

Les Rutabagas C'est Arrive!

It's Thanksgiving Eve, which means it's time for Rutabagapalooza! Seven Canadian rutabagas (or, given their origin, rutabag-ehs) are with Laura in the kitchen as I write this. I am relieved to report that they all survived the photo shoot:


Tomorrow we load the rutabagas, pies (plus whipped cream fixins!), appetizers, juiceboxes, footballs and kids into the car for the short jaunt to enjoy Thanksgiving with a great group of friends, including 5/6 of this blog's masthead. Among other treats are EMM's justly famous mashed potatoes and CRH's increasingly-justly-famous creamed onions. JWT will work his usual magic with the gravy and grace us with, well, grace, and staunch traditionalist JJV is riding in the same vehicle as cranberry salad.

We wish our readers a safe and enjoyable holiday in the company of family and/or friends.

Turkey Talk

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without this classic, if edited, bit from WKRP in Cincinnati:



Up (though, thankfully, not in the air) next: Rutabagas!

Mashed (by) Potatoes

We are looking forward to EMM's yummy mashed potatoes at tomorrow's Orphans' Thanksgiving. Here is an audiovisual masterpiece, hopefully not giving away any culinary secrets, for your digesting pleasure:

It's Root, Root, Root for the Root Vegetables

Behold the 2009 rutabagas!



This blog has a tradition dating back to its earliest days of rutablogging, with a very slight bump last year, when Laura was sick and I ended up making the rutabagas. Fortunately, and for many more reasons than rutabagas, Laura is back in action this year and she will be peeling, cubing, boiling, Cuisinarting and buttering the 'bagas once more. In fact, she has already done one batch for our friends' Thanksgiving dry run last weekend and they were as yummy as always.

On behalf of all of us here at Potpourri for $500, we wish you a safe and happy Thanksgiving.