I Wouldn'ta Believed It if I Hadn't Eatit...

Is anyone like me and a big fan of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine? I just love those pidgin english speaking crocodiles who just can't help it, their nature is to eat zebras, and their fraternity (Zeeba Zeeba Eeta) is located in a nice suburban neighbourhood in a bungalow right next to a zebra. Maybe they need a 12 step programme... "Hi, me name Larry and me lika eating deelishus zeebas"... Needless to say I feel a certain affinity for them...

Anyway, on the roasted vegetable front, I was next store at BF's house last night and we were doing one of those very informal potluck things where we go, ok, I've got a bit of this and that in the fridge and if you have some of this, so we ended up with 2 different frozen pizzas, some soy-mushroom burgers, and carmelized cauliflower and turnip fries.

Yes. Turnip Fries (ok, rutabega actually, but in my end of Canada we rarely see white turnip and so the yellow fleshed purple skinned rutabega is called turnip here). I know, it sounds gross, but they were really tasty. BF hates turnip and A while back, when I discovered carmelized cauliflower via Orangette's blog (see my links list I'm too lazy to do it) I realized that if you sliced almost any vegetable fairly thinly, tossed it with some coarse or sea salt and olive oil and roasted it in a hot oven (400 to 450 F) until it had some brown and crispy bits it would taste great. Watch it closely after 10 minutes if it's the first time you've tried this with a particular veg, and some vegetables, like sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar, and thus quicker browning.

So...BF had this turnip literally rolling around her kitchen after a very, very, long visit from her mother. And the damn thing was starting to sprout and it was bugging her. She peeled it, and cut it up into french fry size, sprayed it very generously with her nonstick spray (in my books it's the same as tossing with a little oil if you spray for more than 10 seconds!) and sprinkled on some of that Herbemare seasoned sea salt. Then baked it on cookie sheet until it was tender and had lots of browned parts like a dark fry. Amazing. In fact, I'm going to try it tonight when I roast a duck I bought on Saturday, as the duck takes a high heat too. Yum.