The rate at which I am falling in love with once detested vegetables, it should be no time at all before I revisit parsnips. However, having once had a run-in with furanocoumarins, which I now call "Furnace-You-Morons" due to the nasty burn I got from skin contact with a field of them in bloom, I think I'll pass. Like the time I went out in the sun after trying a cup of St John's wort tea, only a hundred times worse. I may never say "Oh, look at the pretty flowers!" again.
But Rutabaga is innocent in all of this, and after seeing a middle-aged gentleman pick one up in the grocery store, gaze at it lovingly, and put it in his shopping cart, I decided I must have missed something the first time around. It has been years and years and I still remember how much I disliked the first one I ever tasted.
I had three additional ulterior motives in buying this rutabaga. I wanted to show off the new way I learned to peel root vegetables using an apple corner to protect my fingers. Works with carrots, potatoes, beets, too, and now rutabaga! Yay! Can't wait to try this method on a kohlrabi.
Another reason was to see how well they would grate in the Nutrislicer. Wow, fluffy! Just right for roasting.
Then too, I wanted to try adding rutabaga greens to my window sill microgreens garden.
That was sufficient motivation for buying golden beets, as well, and since they were on sale for the same price as the red ones, I decided to make my first batch of golden kvass.
About nutrition, rutabaga are one of Nature's pain killers, rich with magnesium, manganese, and potassium as well as beta carotine. They also contain vitamin B6.
Golden beet roots have a slightly different nutritional profile than red beets, but the greens are comparable and ideally for maximum nutritional value why not combine all 3?
Here is a new batch of kvass with leaves and golden root cubes with red kvass used as a starter. In 4 or 5 days we should know how it tastes. Meanwhile I have started a batch of fermented turnip.