Rutabaga Pi

Intro: Rutabaga Pi

A delicious pie that you can have for dinner or dessert. Rutabagas are a seldom used vegetable that are quite tasty, and really good for you. You can find them in the grocery store, at a farm stand, or if you're lucky enough to be part of a CSA, you'll probably have about 50lbs of them in November. They are also supposed to be really easy to grow yourself.

I found a recipe for this pie in the Victory Garden Cookbook, and changed it to my liking.


Here's What you'll need:

About a pound of Rutabaga
2 or 3 Apples
2 eggs
1T Maple Syrup
1/2 tsp ground corriander
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2Tb brown sugar
1 cup soy milk
a partially baked pie shell

Use your favorite pie crust recipie, or search for pie crust right here on Instructables. Cook it part way, about 15 minutes, so it starts to brown and the dough starts to set. (Hint: if you substitute half of the flour with whole wheat flour, it gives the crust a yummy brown color.)

STEP 1: Get the Rutabaga Ready.

Wash the rutabaga, and peel it with a vegetable peeler. Cut it into chunks. Peel and core the apples, and cut them in half. Save the apple peels for step 2.

STEP 2: Rutabaga Sauna

Put the apple peels in a large steam pot, add an inch of water and some cinnamon. (This step makes the house smell good.)

Put the rutabaga in the steam basket, and steam for 20 minutes. Then add the apples and steam for 10 more minutes. When everything is nice and soft, remove and drain.

STEP 3: Mash!

Mash, mash, mash. Careful, it's hot! You could also do this step in a blender, but then you have to clean the blender when you're done. Get all the lumps out, unless you want lumpy pie.

STEP 4: Mix It Up.

Mix all the ingredients together. Once throughly mixed, pour the mixture into your partially cooked pie shell. Cook it in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then turn the heat down to 350 and cook it for another 30 minutes, until the pie is set.

STEP 5: Eat It Up.

Remove from the oven, let it cool for a little while, then enjoy.

To make your rutabaga pie into rutabaga Pi simply draw on it with a knife when cool. Better yet, you can draw Pi with whipped cream once the pie is completely cool.
It's really good with vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream. It's also good as a side dish. It goes quite well with Tofurkey and mashed potatoes.

To you can easily make this vegan, with egg substitute, and a pie shell made with shortening and butter substitute.

Enjoy your rutabaga pie, and remember, when in doubt, make it into a pie. Just like Sweeney Todd.

Comments

[suayres]

I gather that this is a savory, rather than sweet, dish. It's true that there will be a bit of sweetness because of the inherent sweetness of the vegetable, but I wouldn't call this sweet enough for a dessert. Anyhow, as to the rutabaga/turnip/carrot/parsnip controversy here I thought I'd throw my two cents into the mix. Parsnips and carrots are related, cousins so-to-speak. Parsnips look like anemic carrots, and they are sweeter and starchier than carrots, with a somewhat aromatic flavor (I love them as I find them delicious). Rutabagas and turnips are also related to each other--but not to either carrots nor parsnips. I prefer rutabagas to turnips--as you said, they're watery. They also, to me, have a touch of bitterness not found in rutabaga.

[piperjon]

OMG, this looks amazing! Now, this may be a regional/language thing, but your pic is that of a turnip. A rutabega in my world looks like a pale fat carrot. However, that being said, both turnips and rutabega become sweet and soft when cooked, and I think either one would be amazing in this recipe, or even perhaps both. YUM! And I bet they would go fine in either a ricer or a food mill. I would avoid a food processor, that would just make them a paste.

[glaxona]

Just an fyi...although this vegetable is called a rutabaga in the US, in England, Australia and NZ, it's called a swede (Swedish turnip), in Scotland they're neeps or tumshie.  The vegetable pictured is definitely a rutabaga/swede/neep; what you've described is called a parsnip in the US, and is very differently flavoured than the rutabaga. 

[St Jimmy]

What he's described is definitely what's in the picture... so how can they conflict?

[sinluz]

(I speak of the following from my standpoint living in the US) The root vegetable that looks like a pale carrot is actually the parsnip. The turnip has a light cream merging to pink color and has a high water content. The rutabaga, correctly shown in the picture above, has a yellow merging to brown coloration and is denser that the parsnip. I should know, we were fed them all the time as kids. I had the dubious pleasure of watching my sisters gag and wretch as they were made to "clean their plate". Not pretty. Nonetheless, I love all three of these tubers.

[Jur]

Fun and useless fact:
The name "rutabaga" comes from the swedish word "rotabagge", witch is a name for the same vegetable in some parts of Sweden. Generally it is called "kålrot" (roughly translated to cabbage-root). If you would ask a swede for a rutabaga most will not know what you are talking about =P

[clephtis]

Do you happen to be a fan of the game portal?

[domestic_engineer]

nope. why? do they enjoy rutabagas?

[clephtis]

lol yea they are obsessed with cake. their is an easter egg where they give you the recipe and they go on and on abouyt rutabgas

[MrAngryPants]

Its rhubarb, not rutabaga :D

[ClayOgre]

Can you run the cooked rutabaga chunks through a potato ricer instead of mashing? Or are they too fibrous?

[domestic_engineer]

sure you might need to cook them so they're a little softer. Sometimes I make it with them just mashed a little, and still a bit chunky. it's all good. enjoy

[LinuxH4x0r]

Odd but awesome!