11/22/2022
The Great Pumpkin and Some “Ugly” Vegetables
In a couple of days, most of us will be happily stuffing ourselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, maybe vegetables grown in your garden this summer, and pumpkin pie.
This past spring I bought seeds for the New England cheese pumpkin and planned to make the best Thanksgiving pie ever.
Well, that didn’t happen.
The seeds grew into wonderful vines that took over half of the Coralville public garden, crept over the fence to the neighbor's plot, and tried to strangle the tomatoes, which were keeping to themselves inside their cages. I did get a pumpkin. Nice size, nicely lobbed, and a rather beautiful green.
It needed 120 days but only got about 100. Pumpkins will turn orange after harvest if you can put them in the sun. Alas, my apartment gets only the morning sun.
I plan to save the seeds from it and just maybe next year will bring success!
Rutabagas, parsnips and koloradi ready to be cleaned and tossed into stew. (Photo by Judy Terry)
There are a few other vegetables I like and I call them “the uglies.” Kohlrabi with its long stems coming from the round white/greenish bulb makes it look like something from space. It has a mild taste, almost sweet. Don’t “dish it”, it is really good and you can eat it all, leaves, stems, the skin, and the bulb.
Rutabaga falls into my ugly category. It is in the turnip family, but sort of a rougher relative. It is a good-sized bulb, more than a handful, with the red and yellow outer skin. When cooked they become sweet and taste much like potatoes. Dipped in wax to preserve them in grocery stores, do remove that before cooking. Maybe I have some dull knives, but I had a terrible time trying to cut it up to cook last week. But persevere, it is good for you, good to eat and it is still a fun name to say.
Parsnips aren’t so ugly. They look like an anemic carrot, with the same shape but beige. I like the extra taste in the stew along with cut-up potatoes. Planted in the spring, they need a long growing season and can be left in the ground after the first freeze. They are often sweeter then, too.
Like many vegetables, parsnips are loaded with vitamins and minerals.
Brussels sprouts grow on the sides of long stems and look like little cabbages. They like cold weather and are often best after a hard freeze (Photo by Judy Terry at Vintage Coralville gardens.)
What about Brussels sprouts? Those small green cabbage-like vegetables that are now so very popular. Fresh and baked are quite good. A friend, jDoris, says she wraps hers in a piece of bacon and bakes them which gives them a smoky taste.
Ugly or maybe just unusual, these vegetables are full of all the right things to eat. Maybe some will find their way to your table on Thursday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
