Epic Fail: Hiding Turnips in Mashed Potatoes

I’ve heard you can hide turnips in mashed potatoes.  Sounds like a great idea—you use up this root that many of us don’t like, and you pass it off as mashed potatoes: smooth, creamy, salty, buttery goodness. 

I got 4 beautiful turnips in The Misfits Market Box recently, and I mixed them with the same amount/volume of potatoes.  I washed, peeled, and large-diced the turnips, and the same with the potatoes.  I boiled them all, strained them, and mashed them with plenty of salt, butter, and some half-and-half.  

They were gross. 

There’s just no getting around it.  They were NOT GOOD: thin, watery, bitter, bland.  Reminded me of wallpaper glue from my childhood wallpapering experiences with my mom [who was great at wallpaper]. 

This was hard for me because I don’t often make things that make me think “no.”  I often think “yum,” a few “good,” and an occasional “meh,” but rarely, rarely do I think “nope. Where is the phone number for the pizza place?”  And yet here I was, facing a huge bowl of not yummy, fake mashed potatoes.  

Lesson learned: half potatoes and half turnips are not good proportions.  1:1 is a no-go.  My next attempt will be more like 3:1 or 4:1, potatoes to turnips.  Note: this means, if I get 4 big turnips in my Misfits Market Box, I need to rethink this turnip hiding idea.  What can one do with turnips in their own right?  I don’t know yet.  

Did we eat those nasty mashed potatoes? Yes, we did.  Did we enjoy them? No, no, we did not.

Sriracha helped.  We ate them, meal after meal, on the sheer principle that we don’t waste food.  Not the best week.

At least my dog Beef is still proud of me!