Kohlrabi!

I had Kohlrabi for the very first time today. I didn't know anything about it when we picked one up at the Farmer's Market last weekend, so here's a little bit of info. Apparently, its name is German for "cabbage-turnip". When it's raw it kinda tastes like broccoli stems. The one we got was purple, like this (except bigger):

Apparently they're more commonly all green like these ones:

So I asked the best cook I knew (Danielle's Oma) how to cook it (though apparently you can eat it raw like carrot sticks and such), and armed with that knowledge and some helpful tips from the internetz, I made this!

And it was good too!

So here's what I used:

1 Kohlrabi (one bulb? not sure what it's called)
Half an onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
A few tablespoons of Earth Balance
A few tablespoons of flour
Some water
Garlic salt

Okay. So I chopped up the onion and the garlic, then I cut the leafy stems off the kohlrabi and then cut the ...bulb thing... into quarters. Then I peeled the quarters because I was afraid the skins might be too woody to eat. Then I took each quarter and sliced it up julienne style. Chopped up the stems of the leaves. Then, using a handy trick I just learned from the internet, I rolled all the leaves up together and then sliced the roll thinly... that made slicing thin strip a lot easier than trying to do it while the leaves were laying flat! Why haven't I been doing this the whole time? Anyway...

So using a medium or large pot, I melted some globs of Earth Balance on medium heat and sauteed the onions in it until translucent, then the garlic. Then I added the stems and the julienne sticks of the kohlrabi but not the leaves, and stirred it all up. I then took a spoon and used it to sprinkle some flour over the whole dish, 2-3 spoonfuls, stirring between each one so that it would get incorporated with the "butter". If it's not getting incorporated, add more oil or earth balance. Then I added some water and covered it all with a lid to let it simmer and steam, stirring every 1 or 2 minutes and adding more water if it boils out. Once the kohlrabi sticks weren't loudly crunchy anymore, I added the leaves with a little bit more Earth Balance and sprinkled garlic salt all over it, stirred it up, and steamed/simmered it for a few more minutes.

Then it was done! The flour made a kind of creamy sauce. Kind of a nice comfort food for a rainy, miserable November day like today.