I woke up in the middle of the night last night furiously scratching at some mosquito bites. In my half-awake state, this seemed like a blog-worthy event and I thought, “I’m going to write about this torture of itching.” In the morning, sanity having been restored, I realized how silly that was, but I liked the phrase enough to use it for a blog post title.
Our pretty little garden has begun yielding its produce already. Of course, we’ve been picking asparagus for the last few weeks, but today I plucked a few kohlrabi from out of the soil. These strange looking tuberous veggies look like alien spaceships with all sorts of tentacles coming out of them. I cut off most of the tentacles before taking a photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
We’d never heard of these, nor eaten them until about 15 years ago when they appeared in our CSA box. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and when you join a CSA, you get weekly boxes of produce from a local farm. Anyway, I took that strange vegetable out of the box and thought, “What on earth do you do with these?” I ended up cutting the outer peel off, cutting them into “sticks” and serving them with dill dip. Yum. I highly recommend these – really! And if you want to do it up right, here’s the recipe for dill dip:
2/3 cup mayonnaise,
2/3 cup sour cream,
1 tablespoon dried parsley,
1 tablespoon dried minced onion,
1 teaspoon of dried dill weed,
1 teaspoon of garlic salt.
Mix it all together and let it all mingle together for a couple hours before serving.
And on the subject of vegetables, I’m conducting a little survey. I cut open a red pepper tonight for a salad and was struck by the appearance it had. Do you think the pepper looks more like (A) or (B) below?
Vote early, vote often!
Is it time to go already? I really must delete this in the morning before the red pepper screams and rages at me.
Lynniebeemuseoday 
Definitely A! 😁
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Just so. It was the first thing that sprang to my mind.
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I vote for A. I had never heard of kohlrabi until we moved to MN.
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I agree about A. Kohlrabi is very weird. Maybe that’s why it grows in Minnesota. 😄
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A. And you introduced me to kohlrabi with the delicious dip! However, I have struggled with kohlrabi myself. By the time I get it out of the fridge and peel it for a snack or appetizer, it is strong and too much. Am I doing something wrong? I loved what you served me!
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Kohlrabi is a vegetable that toughens over time, so it’s important to pick it before it gets too old. Secondly, when you buy it at the grocery store, you’ll notice that there is a tender side and a more woody side. The harder it is to cut through, the less tasty it is. If the whole thing is woody and hard to cut, it is too old. Discard it. If a good part of it is tender, even the woody parts won’t be too bad. But you’ll want to have more of your dipping sticks come from the tender side. I’ve heard of people cooking kohlrabi but I’ve never done it. Let me know if that helps!
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Thank you! I think I’ll look for it at the Farmers’ Market instead to insure freshness.
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