Potatoes for St. Patty's Day

In honor of the Irish tradition, we'll be eating cabbage and potatoes tonight! While we have no fancy plans for the cabbage, I wanted to try a new twist on the potatoes. To be perfectly honest, the impetus came from the need to use the rutabagas and turnips in our fridge.

We receive 95% of our produce from Bountiful Baskets, which means that every two weeks we are surprised by a random selection of locally grown fruits and vegetables. We pick up our produce from a local parking lot, where a farmer's delivery truck brings boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables priced by weight. We have the option of choosing organic and non-organic items, and can add weekly specials that range from homemade breads and cookies to pressed oils and flavored tortilla wraps.

Last week, we received a plethora of root vegetables. It's both exciting and intimidating to discover a "new" fruit or vegetable. Previous "discoveries" for us have included box choy, fennel, and vanilla bean (still waiting on a good recipe for that one!).

This week's discovery: rutabaga.

I have two favorite resources for learning how to store, prepare, and eat a new produce item: www.allrecipes.com and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (which has kind of become my kitchen bible). Tonight's new recipe comes from All Recipes:

Mashed Potato, Rutabaga, And Parsnip Casserole With Caramelized Onions

But what about the turnips?!

I made a few subsitutions in this recipe:

1. Turnips instead of parsnips - Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" book assured me that parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas are almost always interchangeable.
2. Vegetable broth instead of chicken broth

Another recommendation I would make is to SAVE THE BROTH! The directions tell you to drain the vegetables after boiling, but why waste perfectly good stock for soup? *Note to self for next time!

The results of the new kitchen experiment were decidedly yummy! Rutabagas and turnips add a touch more flavor to the mash, and the caramelized onions are a delicious topping. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What are your favorite ways to prepare potatoes?
Do you have go-to resources for new and/or unfamiliar food items?