Winter Roots

Before the latest cold struck we were planning on hosting Lord’s Day dinner last Saturday. So we went to our garden and harvested some winter veggies.

Winter beets. We put these in back on 8/21, but they didn’t really amount to much. They sprouted, but only three were bigger than my finger. We’ll leave the rest and see whether they grow or bolt come spring.

Rutabagas are a giant success this year. This purple top variety makes enormous roots, which are crispy, crunch and golden yellow clear through without woodiness. The skins are firm, somewhat thick, but not so much that they are inedible. They are sweet as well, with a delicious, understated thickness.

Also, the world’s biggest parsnip!

Split at the top, and the wrinkles were fairly prominent so it either has to be scrubbed out carefully, or peeled. However, it is not woody in the least, a little on the spongy side of crispy, with a delicious buttery parsnip flavor.

That’ll do for a Foremole’s Deeper’n’ever Turnip’n’tater’n’beetroot pie.

But then we got sick, so…

Daddy tried an experiment he’s been wanting to try for a while now. Lactofermentation.

After cutting them into snacking size slices, I packed them into jars, making sure there was as little air space as possible.

Then carefully mixed a 3% brine (60g salt to 2 L water) and filled the jars.

Then put on the weights and self burping lids and set them to do their thing. Since the house is climate controlled in the mid 60’s this seemed like the best place to leave them, rather than the garage or the deck which are subject to greater temperature variation.

Of course this left us with a whole bunch of root veggie unused, so…

We stewed them down with ground beef and potatoes in a red wine reduction.

And added a little flower to make a gravy…

And baked them into a boiled water lard crust to make pasties!

Mommy and Daddy thought they were delicious though we agreed next time we would use beer instead of wine as the base. Evie ate hers without complaint. Ellie refused to eat hers until she saw that she would not get dessert (home made boiled vanilla pudding) unless she did. Seppi ate all the crust and left the innards. Winnie ate all the innards and left the crust.

And that’s cooking for a family.