To begin with....you need to know what they taste like to know what else you might like them in.
Peel one, cut it up and cover with lightly salted water and cook until it's soft...about 30 to 45 minutes...drain, add butter and perhaps a tiny bit of nutmeg and enjoy.
Then you will know if you want to try them creamed or mashed or roasted or whatever else.
But first....find out what they are like.
Linda C

My favorite with turkey or pot roast - its the gravy I think :)

I make them very plain - just peel, cut into little cubes and boil until soft and them mash with butter, s&p and serve with mashed potatoes and don't forget the gravy.

Or I like them cut into matchsticks and boiled and eaten as is with butter, s&p. Nothing fancy for me.

You are in for a treat Eileen. Rutabaga is a favourite veggie. I always serve rutabaga with a roast turkey or chicken dinner. Great cooked in beef stew too. I usually steam it but cooking it in salted water works too. Along with the butter, salt and pepper, toss in a cracked garlic clove too. And if I am not serving mashed potatoes I'll mash the rutabaga. You can cut it in cubes, wedges, sticks, etc...

Enjoy!

Ann

Steamed, mooshed, buttered, with a dash of nutmeg and a bit of sea salt it is!

I'll try them this tomorrow. I have dinner plans out tonight. Late birthday celebration.

Regardless of what others say, I always add about 1/2 to a teaspoon of sugar when cooking them. It cuts the bitterness that they may have. I sometimes roast them, too. Always serve them LOTS of butter, salt and pepper.

Probably one of my favorites next to potatoes. I like them mashed best with lots of pepper. You can mash them with a bit of butter and/or a bit of milk just like regular mashed potatoes. I also love em mix mashed right in with the mashed pototoes. If you boil them along with the potatoes cut/cube the rutabaga pieces a bit smaller than the potato pieces to compensate for the longer time they take to boil.
Lastly they taste not bad raw and you can use them as a dip along with carrots, celery etc.

Add my name to the list of people who really like rutabaga. I also like them best mashed with butter, salt and pepper, just like mashed potatoes, but they are good roasted too, or added with the rest of the vegetables to a pot roast. They are a must in Upper Peninsula pasties too, it's not really a pastie without the "beggies".

Annie

I'm another who loves them, and although we don't get them here, I did manage to grown them one year here in our garden. My mom's roast beef dinner would always have them mashed with lots of butter, salt and pepper to go with the gravy, potatoes, peas, carrots and creamed corn. They were my favourite vegetable. They weren't called rutabaga either when I was growing up on Vancouver Island.....they were called turnips, including in the supermarkets.

SharonCb

And when you have leftover mashed, you fry them up in the morning in the pan with the bacon and eggs and leftover mashed taters... yummmy

mmmm. I love rutabaga. We like to mash them with some butter and applesauce.

They have a taste similar to turnip, only drier and more fibrous in texture, less sweet, and maybe stronger. I find they have a peppery bite, some people find them bitter.

I don't cook them often because they are usually so large and DH and DD don't eat them. But when I do cook them, it is usually boiled and mashed, with a bit of salt and pepper and butter.

I wonder how they would taste cubed and roasted?

I find them less bitter and more sweet then turnips. I guess it depends on the rutabaga and turnip. I cut them up and put them with the other veggies in my New England Boiled Dinner or when I have Corned Beef on St. Paddy's Day. Other ways are steamed then mashed with lots of S & P and butter. Now I have a craving for them!
Clare

Mine aren't so large. One is the size of a baseball the other the size of a softball. Maybe they get fibrous and bitter when they are left to grow large? What sort of mutant-sized rutabagas do you all get where you live?

Tonight I will cook them and report my findings.

What about two turnips? Same treatment as rutabagas? I managed to get two of each vegetable yesterday at the store, so this thread is particularly timely for me.

eileen, I've never gotten a rutabaga that small, mine tend to be more the size of a soup bowl!

I like turnips the same way I like rutabaga, but I like them raw a bit better than I like the rutabagas raw.

Annie

My first rutabaga is down the hatch!

I peeled them and cut them into small slices to steam. Like a turnip or a jicama, the first cut is a beast to accomplish even with a sharp knife. I nibbled a few raw bits. Okay, but like Annie, I think raw turnip is just a shade tastier.

I steamed them and mashed them and seasoned them with s&p, nutmeg, and a bit of sinless spray butter. I have the real thing but I've been naughty enough today! And I like them. I like most vegetables so I'm not surprised.

I saw fresh garbanzo beans in the store today. I've never noticed them before but this store probably has a larger ethic customer base than others in town. I tried one, peeling the "pod" off. It was similar to a firm raw pea. I guess one cooks them and eats them like edamame, popping them out of the little shell?

The only way I've made rutabaga is in Tempura. I made it during the time when we were in our temporary kitchen during our heavy construction. I bought almost every root veggie our market had, beet, radish, potato, rutabaga and so on. Joe liked them all!

It's time for tempura again!

Michelle

I use rutabaga in my pot roast. I also love it steamed and mashed with butter, salt & pepper. But my favorite way to fix it is to cut it in 1/2" square sticks and sautee it with a little onion in butter until brown and tender. Salt & pepper to taste.

Eileen, I'm not surprised that you liked them either. Around here I can buy them small or large. I never find them bitter. I wonder if that has more to do with how old they are rather than size. When we lived in the east, rutabagas always came with a wax coating on them. I assumed that prolonged their shelf life. You never find wax coated rutabagas out here.

Ann

Ann, I found the leftover portion I just ate for my lunch to be even sweeter than last night's serving. It will get a regular rotation in my kitchen.

I don't recall much waxed produce around here. Some exotic stuff like taro root has a wax coating.

I went looking for nutritional content and found this:

Rutabaga

Selection Information

Usage: Used like turnips.

Selection: Good-quality rutabagas will be firm, smooth-skinned and free of blemishes. The coloring will be a deep rust-red that fades to a cream.

Avoid: Avoid product that is soft or spongy, scarred or cut, or has dull coloring.

Seasonal Information

Rutabaga is available year-round.

Rutabaga Nutritional Information

Serving size 1/2 cup (70g)
Calories 25
Total Fat 0g
Sodium 15mg
Total Carbohydrate 5g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Protein 1g

% of U.S. RDA
Vitamin A 0%
Calcium 0%
Vitamin C 30%
Iron 0%

Tips & Trivia

* The rutabaga resulted from a chance hybridization, centuries ago, between cabbage and turnips. The plant is considered by botanists to be in the cabbage family.

* The name comes from the Swedes and the most common synonym is Swede or Swede turnips.

Forgot, you can also mash some carrots into them as well if you find them too bitter.

My wife is from England, and calls them Swedes, as was mentioned above.

Anyway, we have rutabagas a few different ways, but REALLY enjoy them when steamed and mashed with carrots! Even the children like them that way. The sugar from the carrot's may make them very sweet, and you will need the salt and pepper to make them taste like vegetables again.

When available, we also like them cooked with either fresh cabbage, ginger, raisins, apple, and even pineapple (if the sugars don't bother you.) Try combinations of those ingredients too, you would be amazed with how good rutabaga combines. In my personal opinion, avoid combining with pumpkin or other squashes though, the flavor gets strong together.

Baked, steamed, or roasted Swede all tastes the same unless combined with something. So, we steam them when we don't want to fire up the oven, and bake or roast in meats or next to other casseroles when the oven is already hot.

Pooo...count me out when you cook these!

I often wonder how I can be half Irish and half Lithuanian and not like these or potatoes. I'm sure I was adopted...;-) and some Italian-Thai family is looking for me.