The winning Vegetable of Week 1

Of all the veggies we got week one, the winner was Kohlrabi. I liked the squash and the zucchini and other stuff, but I already knew what I was getting with those. Kohlrabi was a pleasant surprise. Even my daughter liked it, and she won't eat anything.

Okay, no pictures here because I already used all my kohlrabi. But I want to publicly endorse this weirdo vegetable.


It tastes like broccoli or Brussels sprouts, and kind of looks like a mutant turnip.

To prepare them, you'll want to cut off the leaves, and then peel the green coat on the outside. It's a little thicker than a potato jacket or tomato skin, so you might want to bust out a paring knife.

I prepared the Kohlrabi two ways:

1.  "Fries"
a. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a skillet.
b. While that gets hot, cut peeled kohlrabi into sticks, roughly the size of steak fries.
c. Toss your kohlrabi sticks into some seasoned flour. (A little salt, pepper, and garlic powder works fine.)
d. Cook the kohlrabi is small batches on the skillet. You'll want to do about five minutes on one side, then flip them over and cook another five minutes. The kohlrabi should brown some.

It's okay to eat raw, so cook it as little or as much as you want.

2. Roasted
a. Put a 13 by 9 casserole dish into the oven.
b. Turn the oven on to 450. Let's let that dish get hot.
c. Cut the peeled kohlrabi into cubes of half to three quarters of an inch.
d. Toss the kohlrabi in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
e. When that is coated, dump it into the hot dish. Don't touch that dish, it's hot.
f.  Let the kohlrabi cook in the oven for 15 minutes.
g. While it's cooking, take a squash and quarter it lengthwise. (The original version I read used a butternut squash, but my hippie box had a big summer squash.)
h. Use your knife or a grapefruit spoon to get the seeds out.
i. Cut the squash into pieces about the same size as your kohlrabi pieces.
j. Toss the squash in some olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
k. Is that your timer? Flip the kohlrabi a bit, then shove it to one side of the casserole dish.
l. Now dump the squash into the non kohlrabi side of the dish.
m. Now close up the oven and cook all your veggies. You didn't touch the casserole dish, did you? Aw for cripes sake.
n. After fifteen minutes, flip the squash.
o. Cook fifteen more minutes.
p. Pull the dish out of the oven and toss all the veggies together. The era of segregation is over.
q. Serve it in a nice and pretty new dish, or else warn people not to touch that casserole dish. Oh man, is that dish going to be hot.