The attack of the monster vegetables

I have had mixed luck this week with two ponderous vegetables, the Rutabaga ...

... and the Kohlrabi.

Keep in mind that these pictures, cribbed from the Internet, are no substitute for the real thing, I mean the specimens I actually purchased. I bought my rutabaga and kohlrabi last weekend at the Clinton-Bailey Market. The kohlrabi needed its own shelf in the fridge. The rutabaga was almost a foot wide. Howard was so impressed by it he photographed it sitting on the kitchen counter. I will have to find his photograph and run it so you see what I mean.

Normally I am the master of creations such as these.

It is just that this week I did not have much time. I was getting up early to enter the beautiful and labyrinthine world of Leonard Pennario. Emerging from that world I would have to head for the office. In between were Zumba and my mom, which left only a few minutes, alas, for Mssrs. Kohlrabi and Rutabaga.

I love to roast vegetables and I found directions on how to roast the two vegetables. But the wedges just did not soften up right. I do not know what happened.

On the plus side, I used part of the rutabaga to make Himmel und Erde. That is German for "Heaven and Earth." You take rutabaga and potatoes and apples "in any proportion" -- that is how "The Joy of Cooking" puts it -- and cook them and mash them up together. Yum! It is called Heaven and Earth because the roots come from the ground and the apples come from the sky. This dish came out great. It always does.

I did roast some kohlrabi wedges with chicken pieces. They came out well. But they wound up doused in chicken fat. I mean, what's not to love?

Hmmmm. Now that I think about it, I did have about a 50 percent success rate.

Saturday I will have to go back to the market and buy another rutabaga and another kohlrabi. Perhaps even bigger than the ones I got last time.

I will get this right!