My halloween turnips! They're supposed to look like Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie from the Nightmare Before Christmas (my favorite movie - now rereleased in 3D! can't wait to see it)... turnips are more delicate than I'd thought.
When mom visited this weekend, she brought me LOADS of turnips from her natural food store that had begun to wrinkle. Apparently not many people appreciate the wonder that is the turnip. So with loads of turnips and not many recipes for them, I decided to connect to my celtic roots.
watch out little turnip!
Turnips don't have that soft mushy inside that makes pumpkins so ideal for carving, but after I scored the innards several times with the knives, they were fairly easy to dig out with a spoon. The only problem is in the details... As you can see from Jack's nose, I didn't have a small enough knife to do detailing.
but they're so cute.
I was left with a pile of turnip shavings:
There's about 1 tightly-packed cup of shavings. I pickled them, which is to say I added about 3/4 cup vinegar, 1 1/4 cups water, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 tsp dill. If I hadn't been so worn out from cutting, I'd've added some chopped garlic. I left it to marinate for a few hours on the counter, then stuck it in the fridge for 3 days to pickle. Today's the third day - I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.
Enjoy your halloween!
2 comments:
what a fun idea to carve turnips for Halloween!! oh and I too love Jack from 'Nightmare Before Christmas' :0)
So cute! You're quite a talented carver, my pumpkin always has the standard three triangles and toothy grin.
Post a Comment