Well…it’s true.  The rutabaga resembles a large yellow turnip and is suspected of having wild cabbage in its genetic makeup.

Known as the “Swedish Turnip,” the rutabaga’s name derives from the Swedish word rotabagge ~ “rot” for “root” and “bagge” for “bag.”

A Eurasian brassicaceous plant (Brassica napobrassica), rutabaga is cultivated for its bulbous yellow- or white-fleshed, edible tuber, which is used as a vegetable.

The fibrous material is excellent for slicing with a Kyocera ceramic knife.

What exactly does a rutabaga taste like?

It’s a little bitter, but that bitterness is balanced with a nice, sweet earthiness.

But recipes often hide the taste.

Swedes and Norwegians cook rutabagas with potatoes, sometimes with the addition of carrots (“for their color”), and mash them with butter and either stock or, occasionally, milk or cream, to create a puree called rotmos (Swedish, literally: root mash) and kålrabistappe (Norwegian). Onion is occasionally added.

Here’s our favorites recipe:

Rutabaga with Caramelized Onions and Apples

1 small to medium rutabaga

2 tart cooking/baking apples

2 yellow onions

4 tablespoons butter, divided

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste

1. Peel onions and cut in half. Slice thinly. Peel and core apples; slice, then julienne into matchsticks about 1/4 inch thick. Toss apples and onions together to combine.
2. Melt three (3) tablespoons butter in a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-low heat.  When butter is melted, add onion-and-apple mixture and allow to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally for 45 minutes to one (1) hour. About 30 minutes into the cooking time, sprinkle one (1) tablespoon of brown sugar over the onion mixture and gently stir in.
3. When onions are deep golden brown and caramelized, add 1-1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar to pan and stir, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan. Cook for 1-to-2 minutes longer until vinegar is absorbed, then turn off heat and set aside.
4. While the onion mixture is cooking, wash and peel the rutabaga. Cut into 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch dice. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook diced rutabaga until tender ~ about 20 minutes. Cooking time will vary according to the size of your dice, so test at five-minutes intervals. The rutabaga is done when it is fork-tender. Drain well.
5. Remove onion mixture from pan and melt remaining one (1) tablespoon butter in the same pan. When melted, add rutabaga cubes. Season with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook over medium-low heat until heated through, about 10 minutes.
6. Add onion mixture back to pan and gently stir into rutabaga cubes. Let cook for a minute or two to heat through.  Serve immediately.

Three peelers in one, the Perfect Peeler rotates to vertical, horizontal, and 45-degree positions for a range of peeling styles.

The Patent-pending Perfect Peeler:

• Fits small and large left and right hands.
• Features an ergonomic, non-slip handle and an ultra-sharp advanced ceramic blade.
• Is dishwasher safe, easy to find in a drawer and fun to use.

Made from advanced ceramic, the Perfect Peeler blade is super sharp and stays sharp 10 times longer than steel blades.  It provides an optimum cutting angle that glides effortlessly through foods.  It won’t ever rust or corrode, won’t brown foods, and won’t transfer a metallic taste or smell to food.

A fruit and vegetable peeler is a rather commonplace kitchen tool, made to do an ordinary food-preparation task.

But the Kyocera Perfect Peeler transcends the ordinary and is unmatched in quality and performance.  And you don’t need to just take our word for this fact.

Here’s what one expert reviewer had to say about the Kyocera Perfect Peeler.  According to Paul S., writing on Bestcover.com:

“…Most vegetable peelers are fairly low-tech and simple. And they do an ordinary job. They’re little more than a steel or ceramic blade and a rubber handle. The Kyocera Perfect Peeler is different. If you’re looking for the best ceramic peeler, it’s in a class by itself.  Ceramic blades are extremely sharp, and stay sharp. And Kyocera gives them a new twist. The best part about the Perfect Peeler other than its modernist design is that with a flick of a dial you can use it horizontally, vertically, or at a 45-degree angle like a paring knife. It’s solid and sturdy, and its keen ceramic blade never rusts. Its rotating head, soft grip and pivoting sharp blade make peeling effortless. Its only drawback is that ceramic blades can be fragile, and the two pins that hold the blade in place are somewhat delicate. But if you have to plow through a pile of different vegetables, the Perfect Peeler is the best way to go.”

The amazing onion provides layers of flavor and color to a wide variety of dishes and cuisines.  Onions are often chopped and used as an ingredient in various hearty warm dishes, but they are also often used as a main ingredient in their own right in, for example, French onion soup or onion chutney.

Onion are used raw in cold salads or pickled in vinegar and eaten as a snack. These dishes are often served on the side in fish and chip shops throughout Australia and the United Kingdom, where onions are also often served with cheese.

In the U.S., onions are the third most consumed fresh vegetable and are available in grocery stores year round.  Ranging in size from less than one-inch to more than 4.5 inches in diameter, bulb onions can be yellow, red or white in color.

How to Select

Dry bulb onions should be firm for their size and have little to no scent.  Avoid bulbs with any cuts, bruises, or blemishes. When purchasing whole peeled onions, select ones with an outside layer that does not show signs of being dehydrated. Fresh-cut onions should be purchased before the expiration date.

How to Cut

With a few simple tips, and a little practice, these techniques for cutting an onion will save time, tears and uneven cooking.

Start with your sharp Kyocera ceramic knife and a large, firm onion for ease of cutting.  Gripping the onion and with fingertips curved, slice in half from the root end straight through to the top end.

Split the onion in two equal halves, leaving the root ends attached.

Peel back the onion skin and discard it. Place onion halves onto the cutting board with flat sides down. Slice off about 1-inch from the top end of the onion, discarding or saving as desired.

Grip an onion half firmly, curving the fingertips away from the knife for safety.  Slice evenly in parallel cuts from one side of the onion across to the other. Thinner cuts will result in smaller dice; thicker cuts for larger dice.

Move your fingers out of the way and grip the onion at the root end.  Make a parallel cut, slightly angled down toward the cutting board.

Make a second parallel slice above the first one and also slightly angled toward the cutting board (and away from your fingers).

Gripping the onion and keeping your fingers curved away from the knife, slice across the onion in parallel cuts.  When the onion becomes unwieldy to grip, turn the remaining portion face down on the board and continue cutting.

Repeat for the second onion half, chopping the onions from the last few cuts to make even dice.  If you’d like, freeze any onion trimmings, including the brown skin (which will add color) to add to your next stock pot.

Cutting an onion produces a series of chemical reactions that unleashes propanethial S-oxide, an irritant that causes the eyes to fill with tears.  If you want to prevent tears, you have to chop in a way that produces less irritant, and prevents the irritant from reaching your eyes.  Position your cutting board next to the stove and turn on the exhaust fan. Irritants will be pulled away from you and your eyes.

How to Prepare

A staple in the kitchen, onions can be prepared in a number of ways and can be found in almost every cuisine. Aside from the many ways onions are used raw, these are the four most common methods found in recipes: sauté, caramelize, grill and roast.

Onion Rings Recipe with Egg Batter, Deep Fried

Ingredients:

• 3 large Spanish onions or sweet onions
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• cooking oil for deep frying

Preparation:

Wash and peel onions, cut into 1/4-inch thick rounds. Separate rounds into rings. In a bowl, combine flour, seasonings and baking powder. In a measuring cup, whisk together egg and milk. Add milk mixture to dry ingredients, blending well. Dip onion rings into batter, then drip into cooking oil at about 365°. Fry until golden brown, turning to brown both sides. Remove to paper towels or brown paper bag to drain thoroughly. Sprinkle with a little salt before serving.

Fried onion rings recipe serves 6 to 8.

All hail the mighty potato, an integral part of much of the world’s cuisine.

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber.  Neat facts:

• The potato is the world’s fourth-largest food crop (following rice, wheat and corn/maize).
• The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about 73 lbs. of potato.
• The potato is mega-delicious.

The potato can be baked, mashed, curried and more, but we are interested in slicing it for Martha Stewart’s Crispy Potato Roast (see recipe below).  Here’s how to properly prepare the potato:

• It doesn’t matter much whether you peel the potato or not—but if you’ve decided to leave the skin on, make sure the potato is well cleaned before starting.
• The only hard part of slicing a potato is that there are no flat edges, which means an unstable base.  So the first cut is to create a base.
• To slice a potato into round slices, grip half of the potato with your fingertips and cut into the desired thickness at a right angle to the cutting board.
• If the potato is too wobbly, you can cut a little off the bottom to stabilize it. Place the potato on the cutting board, and slice off a ¼ inch from one of the long sides.
• That becomes the first slice, and creates a flat surface on the potato.
• Flip the potato on it new flat side, and you’ve got a much more stable base.
• Then, working from one end of the potato to the other, slice disks the desired width – super thin or thicker.
• To chop the potato, stack one or two slices and cut the slices into thin strips.  Rotate the slices a quarter turn, and cut into smaller pieces.

If you use the “create a base” technique and maintain a good safe grip on the knife, you’ll be able to mow through a bunch of potatoes in no time at all.  Happy slicing.

Martha Stewart’s Crispy Potato Roast

Ingredients

4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled

4 shallots, thickly sliced lengthwise

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

coarse salt

1/2 to 1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes (optional)

8 sprigs thyme

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, combine butter and oil. Brush bottom of a round 9-inch baking dish with some butter mixture.
2. Arrange potato slices vertically in dish. Wedge shallots throughout. Sprinkle with salt and red-pepper flakes (if using); brush with remaining butter mixture. Bake 1-1/4 hours. Add thyme and bake until potatoes are cooked through with a crisp top, about 35 minutes more.

Cook’s Note

The thinner the potatoes are cut, the crispier they’ll become in the oven. Keep the slices together as you cut them so that you can arrange them easily in the dish.

This is a prime season for using a ceramic knife created specifically to slice boneless meats, fruits and…vegetables.  Winter in the northern climes means that there won’t be much in the way of a green salad on dinner tables until spring.  Now is the time to turn to other vegetables for a winter salad. You can make winter salads from a variety of vegetables (e.g., beet, avocado, pea shoot, etc.).

Here’s a winter salad recipe with which you can impress friends and family:

Celery Root and Beet Salad

Many will probably have never even heard of this delectable dish, let alone actually tasted it.  As you prepare it, consider yourself a ceramic slicing & dicing pioneer.

Start with Celeriac (Apium graveolens rapaceum), the unsung frog prince of winter vegetables.

Pare off its warty exterior and you’ll uncover the royal vegetable within: a perfect, ivory-fleshed  winter alternative to potatoes and other starches.

Celery and Celeriac are cousins.

Celery (Apium graveolens), whose leafstalks are eaten raw or cooked, is a plant of the parsley herb family.

Celeriac – also known as celery root, turnip-rooted celery or knob celery – is a kind of celery grown primarily as a root vegetable.

If you like celery you’ll like celery root, which has a slightly earthy and subtle taste.  Don’t be afraid of how it looks. Its supposed to look like a demented turnip.

Easy to Prepare

This recipe for Celery Root and Beet Salad is nice because the celery root is uncooked, so you get a nice crunch. The beets give it a beautiful red color. This recipe takes a bit of time for the beets to cook, but you can always roast them the night before and then just assemble the salad the next day and set it aside for the flavors to blend while you make the rest of your dinner.

Salad Ingredients

1 (1‑lb) Celeriac celery root

6 medium beets (2 1/4 lb with greens), trimmed, leaving 1 inch of stems attached

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, plus additional to taste

2 tablespoons minced shallot

1/4 cup olive oil

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (2 oz), toasted and cooled

Use your Kyocera ceramic knife set to carve a “boneless” (also known as boned) ham.  This whole cured ham is a cut of pork that has had the hip, thigh, and shank bones, as well as most of the fat, removed before it is rolled, molded and packaged.

Boneless hams are easier to carve because there is no bone to carve around. While still flavorful, the ham’s texture can be affected by the processing methods used to remove the meat from the bones. There are also boneless hams produced from small chunks and reformed hams (oval shaped), which are meant to be sliced and used for sandwiches.

If you decide on a boneless ham for your New Year’s meal, count on at least 1/4 pound per person.

Baking Your Ham

The most traditional way to prepare a whole ham is to bake it.  Although ham is perfectly delicious all by itself, you can make it extra-special by using a glaze. The most popular glaze recipes contain combinations of fruit juice, wine or whiskey, honey, mustard, brown sugar, fruit preserves, and spices. Brush some of the glaze over the surface of the ham before placing it in the oven.

• For a ham that has only been partially cooked, you will need to allow about 20 minutes per pound in a moderate (350 degrees F/175 degrees C) oven.
• A fully cooked ham will require about 10 minutes per pound in order to be heated all the way through.

To help keep your ham moist and juicy:

• If it’s going to be in the oven for more than an hour, you may want to place a foil “tent” over your ham in order to keep it from drying out.
• Continue to brush the ham with glaze and baste it with the pan juices every 20 minutes or so, until it is heated through.
• To finish the ham and give it a deliciously caramelized coating, remove the foil tent, brush it with glaze and pan juices one more time, then turn your oven to the broiler setting. Allow the outside of the ham to get nice and browned—this should only take about five minutes, but watch it closely so it doesn’t get too dark.
• When the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F (80 degrees C), the ham is ready for serving.

Enjoy and Happy New Year from Kyocera!

A ceramic knife is an affordable kitchen tool that allows for less strenuous food preparation, maximization of nutrients, and a lowered risk of food contamination. These are fantastic qualities for raw foods preparation.   Since the entire principle of the living foods lifestyle is based on the idea of eating close to nature in order to obtain optimal nutrition and energy from foods, a ceramic knife is a great way to approach gourmet preparation without chemically altering the ingredients.

But why should you have to remember every detail and fact about why ceramic kitchen knives are superior to stainless steel knives?  Just enlarge and print out the chart below and give it along with the knife gift set so that your friend or loved one can keep it for handy reference anytime he or she wants to share with a guest or visitor the unique advantages of this most durable of kitchen tools.

For your giftee, ceramic adds a bit of joy to the food chopping and some extra energy to culinary creations.

Bouillabaisse is extremely popular all around the Mediterranean, and is a specialty in ports across the region.  Lovers of this tasty dish tend to agree that the fish in the seafood soup should be white fillets.  Recipes call for variety of fish, including cod, snapper, flounder, halibut, sea bass, monk fish and more.

In addition to various kinds of cooked fish, Bouillabaisse recipes include shellfish and vegetables flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron (see below)

Kyocera ceramic knives are ideal for slicing fish for Bouillabaisse stews.

Bouillabaisse Stew Recipe

Ingredients:

5 pounds filleted seafood (cod, snapper, flounder, halibut, sea bass, monk fish, etc.)

3/4 pound mussels, cleaned and debearded

3/4 pound fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined

3/4 cup olive oil

2 onions, thinly sliced

2 leeks, sliced

3 tomatoes – peeled, seeded and chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 sprig fennel leaf

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon orange zest

9 cups boiling water

1 pinch saffron threads

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, and add the onions, leeks, chopped tomatoes, and garlic. Cook and stir over a low heat for a few minutes until all vegetables are soft. \
2. Stir in the fennel, thyme, bay leaf, and orange zest. Add shellfish and boiling water; stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.  Turn up the heat to high, and boil for about 3 minutes to allow the oil and water to combine.
3. Add fish, and reduce the heat to medium. Continue cooking for 12 to 15 minutes or until fish is cooked. The fish should be opaque and tender, but still firm.  Fish should not be falling apart.
4. Taste the Bouillabaisse and adjust the seasoning.  Stir in saffron, and then pour soup into a warmed tureen or soup dishes. Serve immediately.

1. First, take your Kyocera Ceramic knife and cut behind the head while angling the knife toward the front of the fish. There is a lot of good flesh on the top side where the fillet extends under the bony plate of the skull, so angling the knife will ensure you don’t waste it. Cut down to the bon e and follow the line through to just behind the fins on the gut cavity.
2. Turn the fish and run the knife just clear of the fins with a slight downward angle. When you feel the knife is down to the bone reduce the angle and follow the bone until you come up against the backbone.
3. Peel the filet back and run the knife over the backbone severing the small lateral fish bones in the process. Stop at this point.
4. Turn the fish over and repeat the first cut you made behind the fish head on the other side. Repeat the second cut near the dorsal fin with the knife angled slightly down.

Skinning

When filleting or skinning a fish, keep the skinning knife clean and wet.  This lubricates the blade and gives a much cleaner cut, more control of the knife and far less drag on the sides of the blade.

1. Grip the fish skin and carefully begin slicing.  Stop when you have an inch or two (25 to 50mm) of fillet released.
2. Change your grip on the fillet to a secure grip on the tab of fish skin you created with the first cut.
3. Firmly hold the knife still and at a fixed angle.
4. Wriggle the skin from side to side while pulling backwards on the tab of fish skin.
5. Continue this motion through the fillet. You can see that even though the skin in the left hand is creased under the tension, it has no effect where the filet knife is separating the fish skin from the flesh.

Success! The fillet and skin are parted and no flesh has been wasted, nor have you left any skin or scales on the filet.

If that sounds like a formula for the perfect cup of coffee, then you will want to know more about the Kyocera CM-50 CF Ceramic Coffee Grinder.

The grinding mechanism is made from an advanced ceramic that is close in hardness to diamond and will never rust – as a result, providing ultra long-life performance. The grind adjustment allows for fine to coarse grinds and the non-slip base ensures stability. The glass container is re-usable and dishwasher safe.

The CM-50 CF is great for Turkish coffee, salt, pepper, green tea and sesame seeds, too.

Chocolate Buzz Espresso Milkshake

But we have our favorite recipe: the Chocolate Buzz Espresso Milkshake.

The name espresso is Italian in origin. It was first coined around 1900 and, loosely translated, means a cup of coffee brewed “expressly” for you. Today, you will often find that people incorrectly pronounce or spell it “expresso.”

The core of the espresso is the coffee bean, and any type of bean can be used to make good espresso coffee.  The coffee bean is from the heart of the coffee berry. These coffee berries grow on trees that thrive in tropical climates and at elevations between 2000 and 6000 feet above sea level.

Espresso coffee is a small 1 to 2 oz. shot of pressure-brewed coffee using between 6.5 and 7.5 grams (about 1 tablespoon) of finely ground coffee. Brewing takes about 25 to 30 seconds. Properly brewed, an espresso will feature a layer of rich dark golden cream, called “crema” on the surface. This crema is one indicator of a quality espresso. Making a great espresso is truly an art as well as a science.

Chocolate Buzz Espresso Milkshake Ingredients

1 fluid ounce espresso coffee

1 cup milk

5 cubes ice

3/4 cup chocolate ice cream

2 teaspoons instant hot chocolate mix

2 tablespoons chocolate syrup

Directions

In a blender combine milk, ice cubes and espresso. Blend until smooth. Stop blender and scoop in the ice cream. Add the chocolate powder and a generous squeeze of chocolate syrup. Blend again until smooth. Pour into 2 tall glasses and serve immediately.