Root Vegetables - Potatoes, Carrots, Yucca, Taro, and more. How do you like them?

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Monkey Pink

Monkey Pink

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kiwifarms.net
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May 3, 2021
It's Fall, which means it's root vegetable season. I've been experimenting with Yucca, mashing it like potatoes, and making it into fries. It's good, a different taste than potatoes but I'm into it.

Potatoes are great but they're super carby. This seems to be the case for most root vegetables, they're starchy and have natural sugar in them so I'm personally careful with them.

What have you made, or experimented with lately? What's the best way to eat these things?
 
I like to roast various non-potato root veg (carrots, parsnips, beets etc) with olive oil, sesame seeds and a little bit of honey. Goes nicely as a side or in a salad but if I'm being honest I sometimes just eat it from the baking pan with my hands. I also stash all my root veg peels along with other scraps in my freezer and then make them into stock when I have enough. It makes a very nice soup base.

I like Chioggia beets cause they're cool and stripy. Yeah they taste the same as the plain ones, but look! Stripy!

beeps.jpg
 
Ash potatoes are a camping staple. Kind of a bitch to cook if you just want them though. Well also even when you're camping since it takes like two hours after you put the fire out. Basically just wrap them in foil and toss them in the ashes. They'll get black and ultra crispy on the outside.

Could do it with most tubers but I think beets would get too sweet.
 
Carrots are my favorite vegetable, but I usually buy the peeled baby carrots. I've wanted to try parsnip for a while, though.
 
Trombonista said:
Carrots are my favorite vegetable, but I usually buy the peeled baby carrots. I've wanted to try parsnip for a while, though.
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Parsnip is a fragrant carrot, very good and can be eaten raw just like a carrot.

My go-to is oven baked beets, rutabaga, carrots and potatoes toss them in some oil, salt them, pepper doesn't hurt, add some tyme and let them go for ~70 minutes. Pro-tip, put a chicken on top. When the chicken is done, remove it, stir the veggies in the chicken juices and let them roast for 20 more minutes or until the beets are done(they take the longest - edit: so cut them smaller than the potatoes).

Another good dish is root-mash. Potatoes, rutabaga, carrot and celery root boiled in vegetable stock(just use a couple of bullion cubes). When done, set aside some of the stock and drain the vegs. Mash/whip and add a little stock until it is fluffy and shiny, almost like a slightly grainy puree or baby food.
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Traditionally served with ham hock but it works with a lot of things and I think the mild and aromatic taste goes well with salmon.
The recipe is ~1/3rd potatoes, ~1/3rd rutabaga, then 1/4th celery root, carrot and maybe parsnip.
 
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I recently made a dish my grandfather (he did much of the cooking in his household as he'd been a butcher and a grocer) used to serve when I was a kid: Boiled potatoes roughly crushed in a very dark gravy along with bits of diced meatballs/hamburger meat, served in a deep dish topped with large amounts of finely grated raw carrots and a dollop of lingonberry jam (you can probably use cranberry sauce from what I hear).

Very much in the kiddy/comfort food realm, but still with a very wholesome and satisfying taste to it. Carrots taste much sweeter and juicier when finely grated, strongly recommended as a side for any dark stew type dish that doesn't included tomatoes.
 
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Hmm, taro. I've had taro flavored bubble tea and ice cream and it was similar to ube.

What are things to do with taro and ube, besides sweets?
 
There's not a single thing you could do to a potato, that I wouldn't still love it. Boiled, fried, mashed, baked, roasted, barbecued. Samosas. Pierogies. French fries. Hash browns. Scalloped potatoes. Au gratin. Potato chips. Poutine. Potato bread. Potato soup. Potato salad. Saag aloo. Latkes. Rostis.

Potatoes are the superior tuber, by a million miles. But carrot ginger soup is also nice, especially in the fall.
 
i really enjoy root vegetables, especially potatoes. cubed and boiled, drained, then stirred with salt and butter; boiled, drained, and mashed with a bit of sourcream and green onion; shredded and mixed with a beaten egg and herbs, then baked or fried; or simply chopped and fried with some garlic salt and black pepper ... i love it all.

i'm also enamored with beets. for those who may not know, chard/swiss chard and beets are from the same plant (beta vulgaris), they're just usually grown for one purpose (large leaves for chard, large bulbs for beets) and sold as different produce items. my favorite thing is to buy smaller beets with the greens intact. while boiling the beets, wash and chop the chard, then mix it with baby spinach and toss it with a balsalmic vinegrette and put it in the fridge. when the beets are soft enough to spear with a fork, drain and slice them. top the greens with the beets and blue cheese / goat cheese / gorgonzola crumbles and toasted almond slivers or toasted pinne nuts.

Monkey Pink said:
What are things to do with taro and ube, besides sweets?
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taro is traditionally use to make poi, a pacific island porridge. it can also be sliced and lightly fried, then made either sweet or savory with herbs and spices, or it can be thinly sliced, deep fried, and salted for chips.

also, fyi ... yuca (of the euphorbiaceae family) is a succulent whose tuber as grown as a staple crop in tropical and sub-tropical regions. it's common name is cassava or manioc, and it's the source of tapioca. yucca (of the asparagaceae family) is a plant that is grown in arid environments for ornament and to prevent soil erosion.

taro and yuca both need to be peeled, as the skins contain compounds that can cause g.i. discomfort.
 
keytar solo said:
I like to roast various non-potato root veg (carrots, parsnips, beets etc) with olive oil, sesame seeds and a little bit of honey. Goes nicely as a side or in a salad but if I'm being honest I sometimes just eat it from the baking pan with my hands. I also stash all my root veg peels along with other scraps in my freezer and then make them into stock when I have enough. It makes a very nice soup base.

I like Chioggia beets cause they're cool and stripy. Yeah they taste the same as the plain ones, but look! Stripy!

View attachment 3909045
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They taste the same, but do they have the same staining problem? Because, if not, sign me up! I'd 100% replace normal beets in my summer borscht with this if it meant I didn't risk painting my hands or the kitchen pink.
 
Absolutego said:
They taste the same, but do they have the same staining problem? Because, if not, sign me up! I'd 100% replace normal beets in my summer borscht with this if it meant I didn't risk painting my hands or the kitchen pink.
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iirc the pink does run a bit, but not nearly as bad as the fully red ones. You can also get golden beets that don't have that issue at all because they're...golden (I don't remember the yellow staining the way e.g. turmeric does):

Golden-Beet.jpg
Golden beets also taste like the red ones.
 
Trombonista said:
Never thought about trying it, but maybe I should. Turnip too.
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I hate cooked cabbage and while rutabaga might smell like cabbage it does not come out that way.

Another tip for root vegetables is to shred a carrot and put it into anything you bake. Sponge cake, bread, cupcakes, doesn't matter as long as it's not cookies. It won't give whatever you make any taste but the baked product will stay fresh and moist for an extra couple of days. No one will notice as long as they don't look at what they're eating and if they look they will probably think you're serving fresh and healthy cupcakes or something. Aren't they foolish? You just served what you made five days ago and it's loaded with sugar.
 
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