What's for dinner 12/22/09 - Russian Salad

Our winter CSA box usually gets me a little depressed. I'm not a big fan of root vegetables and as of lately we've been getting tons of them (beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes, and the bane of my existence: rutabaga). In the passed 2 years of subscribing to our CSA I have never used my rutabaga, it usually sits in the fridge, giving me the stink eye until I throw it in the compost. But this year, I decided to do my best to use it all up. After looking through Moosewood Cooks for a Crowd, I stumbled upon a recipe that I thought might just work. And, I must say, rutabaga and I are getting along quite well now. Here is the adapted recipe, so for those of you who have no idea how to get rid of all of those root vegetables - here's how in one fell swoop. 

Ingredients

3 medium sized fresh beets, peeled and chopped

2 medium peeled potato, chopped

1 large rutabaga, peeled and chopped
1 large peeled carrot, chopped
2 dill pickles (all we had were slices and they worked fine)
1 leek, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 or 2 sprigs of fresh dill, chopped
salt to taste

Boil the potato, rutabaga and carrot until they are soft but can still hold their shape. Take out potato, rutabaga and carrots and set aside, while chopping the leek and pickles. Boil the beets until soft. Once you can get a fork in and out of it with ease, it's ready to take out and cool. Once the boiled vegetables are cooked and cooled then mix in a bowl together with pickles and leek. Add dill and olive oil, a dash of salt and mix well.

Moosewood suggests serving with hard boiled egg or sesame crackers.

Day 3 of vacation and I've conquered rutabaga, I feel like I'm king of the world.