New Blog Feature: Friday Fail

In trying so many new foods and recipes over the past year, we have had our fair share of dishes that just haven't worked as hoped.  From bread with no salt, fight-inducing chile rellenos, and lackluster curried greens, we are no strangers to failed dishes and we have tried not to hide that fact too much because it's all a part of experimenting in the kitchen.  In that spirit, we are introducing a new series highlighting food ranging from "blah" to nearly inedible.  Let's hope it won't be a weekly series!

Our first entry is mashed rutabaga.  We had been getting several rutabagas from the CSA in recent weeks and had already eaten them roasted up in a delicious root vegetable medley.  The rutabagas added some rich meatiness to the roasted veggies so we were encouraged to try them made up other ways. 

Ours looked a little like a geoduck appendage to me.

I followed the Simply Recipes description and it was really easy to make...just like mashed potatoes.  And that's where the similarities ended.  Maybe we were hoping it would taste like mashed potatoes and were put off by the non-potato taste.  Maybe I didn't use enough butter and sour cream, but I doubt it.  Maybe the rutabaga was left in the ground longer than it should have been (a quick internet image search showed rutabagas that were much smaller and rounder). 

It looks tasty...

After filling up our plates with the rutabagas and a big salad, we both dutifully ate as much of it as we could but didn't get too far.  It just didn't taste good.  I think later that evening we supplemented our meal with some popcorn to keep our stomachs from grumbling too much.