One of my husband’s best friends is quite the cook. Southern born and bred, Andrew makes some of the best wings I have ever tasted in my life (no wonder Chad keeps him around). I’m not entirely sure what started our conversation, but a few months ago, he mentioned that his dad grows rutabagas. Um.. ruta-what? I mean I had heard of the things before but wouldn’t have been able to tell you what one looked like, let alone how to cook one. He promised to bring me a rutabaga if I would incorporate it into a recipe for my blog. Of course I said yes. I’ve never seen or touched one in real life but of COURSE I can make a blog worthy dish with one right? A month or two past and our conversation faded from my mind.
Andrew came to our house one night after Christmas, with a white grocery bag in hand, concealing the large, heavy, rutabaga from his dad’s garden in Hephzibah, Georgia. He handed it over, rather unceremoniously I might add, and it took me a moment before I realized what it was. I removed it from the bag, as dirt sprinkled slowly and steadily from its thin tangled roots onto my floor. I wrapped it up tightly and stored it away in our fridge.
Let’s be honest, the thing kind of intimidated me, and I’m sorry to say it took me about a month before I got the courage to not only cook it, but make it the main component of our Winter Gathering. After doing a bit of research on how to cook them (much like you would a potato), and nailing down brunch as the meal that would take place, it followed that creating a hash with the unruly vegetable seemed to be the best option.
Our Winter Gathering just happened to fall on the predicted “snowpocalypse” weekend in Denver which was the perfect setting for our wintery brunch.
I had reached out to our friend Darrelle in January about hosting our gathering in her home, or “the barn” as we call it, which I am mildly obsessed with. So obsessed, in fact, that we hosted our rehearsal dinner there. She is as gracious as she is beautiful and said she would love to be a part. So began a snowy February morning with a few friends cozied up with coffee, mimosas, a camera, and one weird looking vegetable that makes for a darn good hash.
Rutabaga Hash
You will need a sharp knife to handle the task of dicing a rutabaga, which can also be substituted with any sort of potato. It served 5 very hungry girls & was inspired by this recipe.
Ingredients
1 rutabaga, peeled & diced
6 slices of bacon, sliced 1/4 inches thick cross wise
1/2 red onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, minced
1/4 t red pepper flakes
salt + pepper
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley
6-8 eggs
Instructions
In cast iron skillet, brown the bacon until slightly crispy & remove to a paper towel.
Over medium heat, sauté rutabaga, onion, & garlic until just beginning to brown. Reduce to medium low and cover cooking until the rutabaga has begun to soften ( 7-10 minutes).
Uncover and add green pepper, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Cook until the rutabaga is tender and beginning to crisp on the outside.
While the green pepper cooks, heat a large pan & fry up the eggs.
Add bacon to the hash & heat through.
Off heat, stir in parsley & top with fried eggs. Serve immediately.
Biscuits
This is a super simple recipe from the Food Network that yielded soft, delicious, buttery biscuits.
Ingredients
2c flour
4t baking powder
1/4t baking soda
3/4t salt
2T butter
2T shortening
1c buttermilk, chilled
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don’t want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that’s life.)
Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes
