Alternatives to prairie turnips

A bitter cold spell and currently falling snow (along with a trip to the nursery that sells local produce) remind me that even if winter is mostly done with us, the edible rewards of spring are still a ways off. For tribes on the Northern Plains, early spring was the starving time. April and May after a bad-hunting winter were the times to rely on old dry roots, primarily the previous year's prairie turnips (self-promotional segue-- I know a great dissertation in which you can read all about the importance of prairie turnips to people on the Northern Plains).

I can't recommend eating prairie turnips, but in my efforts to suggest seasonal vegetables, I offer two very different recipes that rely on stored vegetables.

Fabulous Baked Sweet Potato Slices

Sweet potatoes
Olive oil
Salt

Cut sweet potatoes into thin slices. Pour some olive oil on a cookie sheet. Run sweet potato slices through olive oil and flip (to get both sides coated with a very thin film of oil, alternatively you can lay the slices out and drizzle over the oil but they won't cook quite as evenly). Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 380 or whatever temperature you are baking something else at. Flip if you want. Take out after about 35 minutes.

The mister and I have several "converter" recipes: those recipes that convince dinner guests that they don't really dislike a vegetable they think they do. This is one of them. It's incredibly easy and incredibly good and super healthy, and pretty much nothing like mushy, super-sweet candied yams served with marshmallows at Thanksgiving.

Sweet potatoes grow well in many parts of the country, and this recipe is best with fresh out the ground fall sweet potatoes, from one's own garden or farmers' market. However sweet potatoes don't lose much in cold storage and April potatoes work just fine. Different parts of the country sell different types of sweet pototoes (and while sometimes labeled as "yams", none of them are true yams, which are a completely different African plant). While this recipe works with any of the types, the orangest ones contain the most of the anti-oxidants that keep sweet potatoes popping up on "super-foods" lists. Baked whole sweet potatoes are also highly recommended, but take well over an hour (they need to be over-baked to be good) and are not as good of gateway to the vegetable.

Chole Saag Sorta

1 onions
great spices*
a little oil
1 box frozen spinach
1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)

Saute the onion with the spices. Add the chick peas and spinach. Cook until warm through.

*We make two different versions of this, one with chana masala (labeled as "spicy blend for chick peas" which contains coriander, salt, dry mango, pomengranate seeds, chili, cumin, mush melon, black pepper, black salt, fenugreek leaves, cloves, mint, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, bay leaf, cardamom, caraway and mace), which comes as a powder and should be added with the onions, and one with pani puri, which comes as a paste and should be added later. Pani puri has about as many ingredients as chana masala, but is dominated by mint, cilantro, tamarind and a little chili. You can add your own spices, just add lots of them.

I have always been a fan of fresh spinach, and in recent years a fan of lightly cooked fresh spinach (those recipes to come in spinach season), but Indian dishes were the first place I loved gloppy cooked spinach. Frozen spinach can only be used in places where the texture and color of the final product is not a main consideration. Given the dearth of available vegetables in this town this winter (not just in-season vegetables, any vegetables), I was grateful to discover a tasty healthy preparation using frozen spinach.

I make no claims on the authenticity of this as a traditional Indian dish. While not the same as choles or saags I've had in restaurants chole means chick peas and saag is spinach. Our household name is "Spinachy Goodness" but that refers to many things around here.