The Craftiest Workshop

I was shopping in Fort McMurray on December 23 at Superstore. When you walk into the store there are large produce bins or stands with the cheapest produce in large quantities. I usually only glance at them before moving past to do my shopping. On this day though, I eyed a large bag of turnips and it was only $5.97.

I really like cooked turnip and I have this tasty soup recipe that I like to make. For some reason, I find it hard to find a turnip in the store when I want one. I decided that I would buy the bag and store it in my cold storage to use through the rest of the winter. Later I learned that turnips are best stored in the fridge in a vegetable crisper and even then will only last a few weeks. They do freeze well if blanched first.

By the time we packed the car, heading back to Grande Prairie, the only spot for the turnips was on the floor behind my seat. I didn’t think anything of it but it was a cold day, -29 feeling like -35. By the time we finished the 7.5 hour trip, some of the turnips had started to freeze and the bag instantly became wet inside as soon as I brought it in the house.

I grabbed a towel and placed all the turnips on it overnight. The next morning, I could see that a few of them needed to be cooked right away. Most of them were fine though so I put them in the basement and left them there in a shallow box.

One good thing about partially frozen turnip is that it is not so rock hard when trying to cut it. I was easily able to peel and dice them. I tossed them in a pot of water, boiled them, mashed them and served them up with some garlic butter and a tsp of brown sugar. They were SO good.

When cooked they turn out similar to a mashed butternut squash with lots of moisture.

I decided to check online to see what the nutritional benefits were of eating turnip.

1 cup of turnip

calories: 36

carbs: 8 g

Fiber: 3.2 g

Protein: 1 g

Vit C: 30% of daily intake

Folate: 5% of daily intake

Phosphorus: 3% of daily intake

Calcium: 3% of daily intake

Apparently the greens of the turnip (which I did not have) have even higher nutritional values.

Some health concerns that turnips may help with are:

Managing blood sugar levels

Less hardening of the arteries that cause high blood pressure

Arthritis inflammation

Fighting cancer growth

I was pleasantly surprised to read how healthy turnip is.

Here is the soup recipe I mentioned above.

I ended up having to make soup fairly soon after I discovered that storing the turnips in the basement was not cool enough.

Carrot Chicken Turnip Soup

Ingredients

6 cups of chicken broth

2 cups of diced turnip

2 cups of diced carrot

3 small onions diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

1.5 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ginger

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups diced or shredded leftover cooked chicken

Directions

Sauté the onion, garlic and carrot with some olive oil in a large saucepan for a few minutes

Add the broth and spices to the vegetables and cook until the turnip and carrot are soft.

Add the chicken.

Pureé using a food processor, blender or immersion blender.

While it may not look very appetizing, it really is quite tasty.
The soup is thick like a bisque.

A healthy filling nutritional meal, perfect on a cold winter’s day.