Roasted Turnip Chips

Lots of greens appeared in my kitchen after this weekend's Chow Locally CSA.  Today I dug in and started with the collard greens and turnips.  I'll write about the collard greens later today, but let me tell you first about the turnips.

Since anything with the word fries or chips added seems to go over better in this house I decided to make turnip fries.  However, the very cute little turnips were too small for fries so I switched to chips.

I adjusted a couple recipes to make these chips.  They took some time to get crispy enough for my family (and note that they weren't ever crispy like a potato chip), but were worth the wait.  The husband and I appreciated them more than the 4 year old, but that's pretty typical of most veggies these days.

Roasted Turnip Chips

Ingredients

• Turnips sliced thin (I used 5 small)
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic flakes  
• 1/4 tsp onion flakes  
• Sea salt to taste
• 1 1/2 - 2 Tbsp olive oil 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Cover a baking sheet with foil.
3. Slice the turnips thin, the thinner they are the crispier they will be. 
4. Put the slices in a large mixing bowl and add the olive oil.  Massage the oil in to coat all the pieces.
5. In a small bowl combine the spices.  Then add to the larger bowl and mix to evenly coat.
6. Put the slices on the baking sheet and bake for 30-50 minutes flipping every 10 minutes or so.  Remove from the oven when they look crisp enough for your liking.

If you don't have garlic and onion flakes you could also use powder.  Make sure to go easy on the olive oil so they don't get too soggy.

Stay tuned for my experiment with collard greens. 

Le Balloon Rouge

Have you seen The Red Balloon?  It is a 1956 French film about a little boy and a red balloon that befriends him.  It's only 34 minutes long and is takes place in the streets of Paris.  It has lovely images, cinematography and a message about how others can be jealous and cruel.

This movie is special to me because I watched it as a little girl.  I remember the teacher setting up the reels and watching it in class, more than once.  I remember longing for the balloon to be safe, and cheering on the little boy who protected him from the mean boys.  How I was concerned that the mean boys would steal and pop him.  Ah, the tension!

This morning I came into the living room and there was The Red Balloon in all of it's glory on my television!  My husband had chosen it for our 4yr old to watch and I was transported back in time.  I'd forgotten most of the movie but it seemed familiar at the same time.  It has probably been around 25 years or more since I'd last seen it (yikes).

My 4 year old seemed to like the movie as well.  She had the same concerns about the balloon and cheered it on as it flew about.  She like me was relieved that there was a happy balloon ending. :)

Have you seen the movie?  It's on Netflix, go check it out!  

And now a request:

This reminded me of another film I saw back in school.  It was about a planet where the sun didn't shine and so the kids had to use sunlamps. But, every 10 years or so the sun shone for one afternoon.  The school kids were teasing one of the other students and he got locked into a room that day and didn't get to go out into the sun.  They all felt horrible when they remembered and brought him flowers from the fields.  Does anyone know the name of this movie?  

Rutabaga Oven Fries and Swiss Chard Gratin

I had rutabaga after last week's CSA.  I made rutabaga potato salad one night, and then rutabaga oven fries the next.

I found the recipe on eat sleep cuddle.  The fries were both easy and delicious.  My favorite combination.  Everyone loved them and we were sad that there weren't more.  I only had 1 rutabaga, and although it was large we could have eaten at least 2.

Rutabaga Oven Fries

Ingredients

• Rutabaga
• Sea Salt
• Olive Oil
• Herbs (I recommend rosemary and thyme)

Directions

1. Peel the rutabaga.
2. Cut into fries.
3. Toss with olive oil, sea salt, and herbs.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  Toss every 10 minutes.  Remove when they are brown and look delicious.

See oh so easy!

My other successful recipe (one that everyone in the family loved) was Swiss Chard Gratin.  I found the recipe here.  I loved it because it was both a vegetable and a side-dish in one.  I added it to a store-bought roasted chicken and viola, dinner is ready!

I picked up this week's CSA from Chow Locally today and it is full of lots of green.  In fact except for the purple carrots and white turnips everything is green.  I'll be looking for recipes for collard greens.  Any recommendations?

Look at these purple carrots, aren't they beautiful?

Fisher Price Fridays - Baby Toys

I thought I'd take a little break from the Fisher Price Little People sets this week and show some vintage Fisher Price baby toys instead.

Do you remember this one?  It's the 1972 Happy Apple #435.  It is a cheery toy that makes a marvelous chiming sound when you move it back and forth.  It wobbles but doesn't fall over, which makes it perfect for little baby hands.  Clearly it is also fun to chew on, despite it being somewhat heavy.  That or my baby has super-baby strength.  Ha!

Here I am in 1977 with my Happy Apple #435 which apparently made me very happy too.  It isn't the same Happy Apple as mine went missing sometime over the years.  I bought my daughters at a garage sale for 35 cents. Not too shabby.  And yes, we are wearing the same outfit.  My mother saved a few baby outfits for me and I love to dress up my little girls in them to take comparison photos. 

These little guys are from the Floating Family set #411.  The original set came with other pieces including a turtle and a teapot.  

The baby LOVES the little people and the boat and spends the majority of bath time trying to eat them.  Look at her hug that boat.

Last but not least is the shake 'n' roll rattle #451.  I couldn't find a date on mine but they were made between 1973 and 1979.  

This toy is great because it has a few different entertaining parts including a mirror and moving hourglass type beads.  It is also easily held by a baby and appears to be indestructible.  Perfect!

These are the only infant Fisher Price toys I have right now.  Did you have any of these or is there another one that was a favorite?

Rutabaga Potato Salad

Rutabaga ended up in my kitchen because of last week's CSA box.  I initially thought the rutabaga was a turnip and had chosen recipes to make and then learned I had the wrong root vegetable.  Whoops.

So I refocused and found two more recipes to try but with rutabaga this time.

The first was a rutabaga potato salad, a recipe that I found from the Chow Locally newsletter (our CSA).  I made a small change as the original recipe called for olive oil.  However, to me a potato salad isn't a potato salad unless it has mayo (or in our case vegenaise).  Here's is what I did:

Rutabaga Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 1 rutabaga peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 pound red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered (same size as the rutabaga chunks)
• 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• sea salt and ground pepper
• 1/4 cup vegenaise (or mayonnaise)
• 2 ribs of celery, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise (can also add 1/4 cup coarsely chopped celery leaves but I only had hearts)

Directions

1. Set a steamer basket in a large saucepan.  Fill with enough water to come just below basket.  Bring to a boil; place rutabaga in basket and reduce heat to medium.  Cover and steam 5 minutes.  Add potatoes, cover and steam until vegetables are just tender, about 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together vinegar and Dijon; season with salt and pepper.  When potatoes are cooked, transfer to bowl with vinegar mixture.  Toss to combine, let cool 5-10 min in the refrigerator.
3. When potato mixture is cool mix in vegenaise, celery and celery leaves.  Season with salt and pepper.

The husband thought the salad was too sweet.  Skipping the white wine vinegar would probably fix that.  I thought is was wonderful and the 4 year old ate some of it.  This is a recipe we will do again!  My next attempt at cooking with the rutabaga will be oven fries tonight.