Turnips, Cauliflower & Beans in Blood Orange Dressing
february 25, 2015

This time of year there is usually an influx of turnips from our CSA, which my family tires of eating quickly. Tonight, with a little help from Twitter (where there are always plenty of people willing to tweet about food) I discovered a new dish that everyone in my family will eat!

 There were lots of other good ideas, but this one came together best because I had a package of heirloom beans waiting to be cooked. Lena Brook recommended roasting the turnips and Rancho Llano Seco suggested adding them to a bean salad with citrus vinaigrette. Delicious! Plus a good reason to make the citrus dressing recipe in Erin Gleeson's Forest Feast that I've been wanting to try.

My kids tend tend to prefer single-ingredient dishes, so before tossing the salad with vinaigrette I gave them each separate piles of beans, cauliflower, turnips and sausage (for added protein and appeal). This worked well: my husband and I had a sophisticated grown-up meal, the kids ate their food and I used up the turnips.

Here's how to do it:

The best way I've found to cook beans is soak them the night before, then in the morning drain the soaking water, load the beans into the crockpot, cover them with a couple inches of water and set the pot for 4 hours on low. Sometimes it takes 6 hours. The key is to cook the beans very gently at a low simmer, so that they don't move around too much. This keeps them whole and creamy. Add salt towards the end, when they are soft.

To roast the vegetables, preheat the oven to 375°. Cut the turnips into similarly sized pieces, toss with olive oil and salt, lay them out in a single layer on a baking sheet. Do the same with the cauliflower, but keep the two vegetables separate, in case one cooks before the other. Roast for 15 minutes, then check to see that they are browning on the bottom. Flip the vegetables and roast 15 minutes more. This can take more or less time, depending on your oven, your vegetables and how you like them cooked.

The recipe for Citrus Dressing is on p. 87 of Erin Gleeson's The Forest Feast: Simple Vegetarian Recipes from my Cabin in the Woods. Take her advice about shaking it in a jar: I've been making dressings this way for years and it works out well. Plus, you can store any leftover dressing in the fridge in the same jar in which it was made, which eliminates needing to wash both a mixing bowl and a whisk. Be aware, however, that jars with rubbery lining on the inside of the lid may contain the chemical bisphenol-a. If you'd prefer to avoid it, use a jar with a glass lid and rubber gasket instead.