More Mystery Produce

More mystery produce from the Arganica box. This produce box has made me realize I am a little bit produce illiterate. Not being able to identify a bunch of the items in the box made me feel like the kids from Huntington, West Virgina shown on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Jamie Oliver brought a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables to a first grade class in Huntington, West Virginia, statistically one of the unhealthiest cities in the country, to see if they even knew where food came from and what fresh food looked like. The kids had trouble identifying the most basic of produce. Watch the clip. Well this produce box has been my Jamie Oliver educating me to identify produce such as swiss chard, purple potatoes and these two items:

beets and turnips. The beets took me a while to recognize. I guess I hadn't seen beets without their stems. I also thought the turnips were rutabaga (yellow turnip) for a while before deciding that it didn't have enough purple in it and so they were probably normal turnips (white turnip). As I barely knew what these vegetables looked like I certainly didn't know how to cook them. So with some research on my trusty google and my trusty food network's website I noticed a common way of preparing these root vegetables is roasting them. I settled on using the baby root vegetable part of this recipe as a guide to roast the beets, turnips, and also some carrots (also from the Arganica box). I've found this is an easy tasty way to cook up any mix of root vegetables. The steps are just to: In a bowl season the vegetables with salt and pepper, drizzle with some olive oil, lightly mix, place on a sheet pan, and roast in oven for 30 minutes at 475° F turning once midway during cooking to ensure even browning. I served this with the Creole fried pork chop and carmelized apple portion of this recipe with a maple syrup and sherry substitution for the cane syrup and bourbon to cook the apples (again from the Arganica box).


I really like Emeril's Creole seasoning (the seasoning to the pork chop). I first came across it in this recipe and found myself constantly coming back to the shrimp part of the recipe and mixing it up by throwing the shrimp creole in with different types of pasta sauces (like an alfredo or a tomato sauce). I now make a decent amount of the seasoning and store it in it's own spice container so it's easily on hand. I might have to make some more now that I know this seasoning also works well on pork.

Recipe Links:	Roasted Baby Root Vegetables
	The King's Creole Fried Pork Chops with Caramelized Apples
	Shrimp Creole
	Emeril's Essence Creole Seasoning