Greenling Quickfire Round 8-9

So once again a holiday interferes with my Top Chef Quickfire Greenling Challenge - well sort of. I spent the holidays in Dallas, TX this year. And as of Dec 2011 there was no Greenling service in the DFW area. So I had to drive my box of fresh awesomeness to my amazing hosts's house to make my weekly dish. I used the russet potatoes and local kale to make my family's favorite passed down recipe for Portuguese Kale Soup - and sure enough Emeril announces that would be his family pass down favorite the same night on episode 8. I nearly died :)


My gracious hosts are vegetarian so I made a modified version with Soyrizo - and it was a hit!  And then upon my return I was thrilled to see Greenling is starting service to DFW in 2012! Score!!!  

 My other distraction for the holidays would be my baking obsession. After baking over 1600 cookies, I embarked on the red velvet birthday cake to end all red velvet birthday cakes. 


This tower is made of red velvet thumbprint cookies, red velvet Krispy Kreme doughnuts, red velvet cupcakes, red velvet cake balls spiked with Peppermint schnapps and topped in a red velvet whoopie pie. 


Oh and yes, those are chocolate mustaches decorating the cake. Why? Because Why not? And the birthday girl deserved an awesome cake :) 

So back to tonight's challenge. In my Greenling box tonight I got a bag of turnips.


At first I was all "YAY turnips" as I love turnips, then I realized I had never cooked them. Ever.  So I sat and stared at them for a while.


Then I reconsidered the whole challenge thing and thought about skipping tonight.


Then I opened a bottle of wine from the fridge and stared at the turnips some more and then poured some more wine... 

 So turnips were just not inspiring me, so I did what I do with most things I don't really know what to do with.


I added butter.


I chopped and peeled them and added to a sauce pan and poured some more wine while I tried to figure out what to do with this vegetable that was stumping me. Then I turned to the rest of my Greenling box and I figured it out!


I had an awesome corn and blackbean salsa as well as some amazing looking southwest tortillas in there. A turnip burrito was in order!


I decided to spice them up with sea salt, cumin, and a pinch of celery salt for good measure and Ta-Da! Instant Yum!

 The finished product, a fantastic veggie burrito alternative (usually bean and cheese in my house) and instant hit with my daughter. She finished hers and was asking for seconds before I even got halfway through my own.


Who knew turnips would be such an interesting and challenging ingredient for me?


I enjoyed the challenge and enjoyed tonight's episode as well. Especially with Paul Qui taking yet another win. Way to go Paul!  He's up to $35,000 in winnings. I'd love to see him take it all! Uchi and Uchiko are two of my most favorite places in the country. I need a bacon steakie fix!





And with that I'm going to relax and enjoy the rest of my evening. Cheers to all the Top Chef contestants and to Greenling for adding the new DFW service!


And like my wine glass, Everything is Bigger in Texas!