Turnip Fritters

So there we were, in the garden, trying to get it ready.

This was a good while ago. We have been too busy to blog, so I am trying to catch up in the odds and ends of time, and it shows. This is all from September 4th, the day Elli got her tonsils out.

This is the row that held beans and peas this year. Now I want to plant it to winter wheat, but first we have to get it cleaned up and prepped.

First step was pulling out the bean trellises. Those have been going strong for 5 or 6 years now.

Next was to go through and broad fork the whole row to loosen it up so we could pull out the weeds.

Of which there were many.

We like to feed the weeds to the sheep and the cow. They like it, and it makes a pleasant addition to their current diet of green willow and brown grass.

But that was as far as we got, because we had to go home to meet Ellie coming back from surgery.

And we got distracted by a snack break.

Baby turnips. Don’t knock it till you try it. They are sweet and delicately textured. If you want you can eat the whole thing from leaf tip to root.

But not very filling, so we pulled a couple of the big purple turnips.

Winnie and Daddy got to work cooking them up.

We diced, boiled and drained them. Then we mashed them with whole wheat flour, onion and garlic, and a couple of eggs, with salt and pepper and cheese.

Mashing was Winnie’s favorite part.

She did not like molding them into fritters. They were too sticky and she wanted to wash her hands right away.

Fried in vegetable oil.

Not bad looking.

“My Daddy and I maked them!”

They were not, unfortunately, universally popular. They have some potential, but need a little jazzing up, and probably would be better if we shredded instead of dicing the turnips, for a better consistency. But it was our first time making them, and they weren’t terrible. We will try again some other time.