Turnips and Carrots and Butter, Oh My!

Here's one of my favorite Thanksgiving vegetable dishes - Mashed turnips and carrots. Yeah, I know, sounds blech. Give it a chance, OK??

I have no photographs, yet, but as soon as I do I'll add them.

Let's get right to it.

The cast:
Turnips, medium or small, one per person
Whole, carrot sized carrots, twice as many as the turnips
Salt
Pepper
Butter

Props:
Pot with enough water to cover the veggies
Potato ricer or masher

Action!(Yeah, I had aspirations to be an actress when I was a kid...):

Peel the turnips, quarter, and drop into a pot of cold water.

Scrub the carrots, remove the tops and tips, then quarter and plop into the pot.

Bring the water to a boil and let it bubble along until the carrots and turnips are fork tender, but not mushy. Mushy will make for an unfortunate flavor/mouth-feel, which is just a sad, sad state of affairs.

Drain the turnips and carrots. Don't be in a hurry - let them drain completely, because water? Is not your friend with this dish. Take note - you won't hear me say "water isn't your friend" very often...

When they are drained, squash turnips and carrots through the ricer. Don't do all of them...save a few pieces of each for later. Don't worry if they aren't smooth like mashed potatoes - the little lumpy bits are part of the turnipy, carroty goodness.

Add butter a tablespoon at a time, mixing thoroughly. Now for the tricky part - salt and pepper to taste. I don't use much pepper, a moderate amount of salt, and generally butter it up until my left coronary artery gives a little twinge. You don't have to do that, and can do without butter entirely if you want. But...why would you want to??

Give it a taste - you want the slight sharpness of the turnip to blend nicely with the sweet carrot and the mellow butter. If it's too pungent, mash in some of the carrots you reserved (you did reserve some, right??). If it's too carrotish, mash in some more turnip.

You can adjust this endlessly to meet demand and taste...and I often do.

One of the nicest parts of this side dish is that you can make it in advance - just pop it in the microwave and heat thirty seconds at a time, stirring between sessions, until it's hot.

If you have any leftover, you can use it in meatloaf or dump it into a pot of soup. I rarely have any leftover, though...