Hi Evelyn,
Peel the rutabaga /swede dice it into cubes - take a bite of one and try to see if you like it raw..lol There are several ways you can cook swedes, you can boil them, you can bake them in a little oil or with the grease from the roast of meat. You can put them into stir fry vegetables. Mashed with a little butter. It is a root vegetable so think of the different methods you cook root veges.
You may be interested in peeling and boiling carrots and parsnips together then mashing them, this makes a nice change -
You can bake carrots and bake parsnips too. With the parsnips cut down the center, top to bottom and take out that middle part especially at the top because that can be hard and take too long to cook.
Silverbeet / swiss chard, wash well, put several leaves and stalks together in a bundle and cut across all the way down the stalks, cause you cook the stalks too - similar to the way you prepare spinach.
Boil in little water until the stalks are tender drain and use the water for gravys or stock in soups as they a full of iron being a dark vegetable.
It has a little more strong flavour than spinach so you can add some sugar, if you prefer. Silverbeet does boil/cook down so you will need several leaves for yourself.
Oh I could easily have biscuits and gravy and I will make this for James, I just prefer butter on mine - I am not much of a fan of dumplings either so this is why I do not put gravy over my scones / biscuits.
When I make Grits for James and I, I do not make it with water but boil in milk then add sugar and eat as a hot dessert in a pudding bowl then add more milk - James will have this with his dab of butter and we are both happy.
I have learned to compromise with some of the foods to cook differently or add something else so I will eat it and be more like I am use too.
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Amanda, rutabagas is one thing I've never eaten. I've seen them in the grocery stores for a long time but since I did not know how to cook them or know if they were eaten raw, I never bought any. The same for Swiss chard. These were two things we never had when I was growing up so that is probably one reason I never tried to find out how to cook or serve them. So if someone knows a good way to prepare either one of these vegetables I would try them at least once.
Amanda it is hard to believe that anyone living in the South has never eaten biscuits and gravy. I love a good sausage gravy and hot biscuits and fried eggs, over easy, or bacon gravy or ham gravy. Biscuits and gravy is another food I've eaten ever since I can remember. Amanda if we lived close enough I would cook you up a batch of sausage gravy and hot biscuits. I believe if you would try this one time you would like it.
I bought one of the toaster ovens after I moved into this house since I now have enough counter space for one and also a roaster oven. One of my sisters talked me into buying the roaster oven and since I now have a big kitchen with lots of counter space, I bought one while they were on sale at Walmart. It is still better, though, to wrap a roast in foil before roasting, makes the clean up much easier.
I do have a microwave and I use it for reheating food sometimes. They may not be good for you, but I think the jury is still out on whether they're dangerous to your health or not. There are many things that aren't healthy, I know, but I'll take my chances with the microwave. :)
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Hello Evelyn,
One of the veges I did notice in the States is the vast variety of bean families.
Beans in NZ were more of the green colour with their casings/pods and the seed inside e.g. runner beans, (I think they were also called stringer beans because if they got too old you had to peel the outside with a potatoe peeler to removed the string down the sides) which you needed a high wire netting with frame for them to climb on.
We grew the green beans that you only needed shorter stakes with string or wire about 3 foot high for them to grow up. Broad beans (called Lima here) you could eat the whole bean when it was young then as it got older, take out the bean inside.
A hybrid was introduced back in the 90s called a Pea-Bean which you could eat it all. Whereby peas you have to shell for the peas inside and the effort involved is not always product effective as often there are not many peas inside for the room they take up in the garden.
Pintos, blackeyed etc I did not see them offered or to buy the seeds.
All the green leaves of turnips, collards, mustard etc were not used, I do not think anyone ever thought of them for human consumption. The tubers were eaten and I particularly like swedes raw (rudabagers).
Farmers would plant whole paddocks of turnips and swedes
for their cattle for the winter months and when they were ready they would electric fence portions off as the cattle ate down to the ground. You would always smell cattle eating swedes as you drove by and also you could taste it in the butter and milk at certain times of the year.
Silver beet (swiss chard) was a great source of iron and dark leafy vegetable that was used widely. Before I left to come live in the States I started seeing different varieties with coloured stalks of the silverbeet.
It's cousin, Spinach was not seen so much and I only every heard of this vegetable via Olive Oyle and Poppeye lol.
James and I love our greens and the variety we can buy.
Scones (biscuits) are staples back in NZ especially offered for morning and afternoon teas, buttered with jam and even a dollop of whipped cream which then becomes a Devonshire Scone.
I never knew what gravy and biscuits were until I got here, this is not a combination that I want to try. So I still butter my biscuits.
Hotcakes or pancakes in the States I butter and jam too and if there is whipped cream will put a dollop on too, because they are the same thickness as pikelets. This is another under the Devonshire Tea family.
I do not bake as much as I would like, especially when James is away working and have often thought of buying one of the counter top ovens that you can bake a small batch of biscuits etc small roast and other baking / roasting / grilling in smaller portions, because to heat up the oven for one or two things I want to heat or bake is kind of expensive. I do not use a microwave as I do not like them at all.
Anyone use these? and what is your thoughts and experiences with them?
Amanda
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Hello Mike and Amanda and friends, two of the things I like best, warmed over the next day, are pinto beans or Great Northern beans. Both were staples when I was growing up and now we're hearing they're also very healthy to eat as are most kinds of beans and lentils. I am also fortunate to be living in an area where fresh vegetables are grown year round and there are numerous road side stands selling them. There are two very near my house and also an orange grove where I stopped and bought some of the best oranges I've ever eaten.
Another food I love as a left over is turnip greens, also another very healthy food. I guess the only foods, that to me, are not better left over are biscuits and cornbread or any bread for matter. In my opinion these are best straight out of the oven. I don't cook hardly anything much anymore but at one time I was very good at making biscuits. Nothing better than a hot, buttered biscuit with homemade jam or jelly or even honey. I know cooking from scratch is much healthier and certainly less expensive.
I have made a promise to myself that I will try and cook more from scratch from now on, even though it is easier to pick up something at the grocery store already cooked or frozen meals from the freezer section or run through the drive thru at one of the fast food places, which definitely is not healthy.
All this talk of food is making me hungry. :)