Love beets ... roasted or boiled & sliced. They're great in a salad with arugula and goat cheese. Never tried rutabaga until a few years ago. It's yummy mashed or in soup (Smoked Paprika and Rutabaga Bisque). Carrots are a regular in our house ... raw in salads, cut into sticks for hummus dipping, steamed, or roasted. I've roasted carrots and parsnips together. Don't care for turnips. I like daikon, but not so crazy about red radishes. Love sweet potatoes ... not so much their white cousin.

Beets!!!! Roasted or steamed, in balsamic vinaigrette with capers and feta, on a bed of arugula. Truly divine.

I'm going to roast the carrots and parsnips together. That sounds like a good way to try them.

Have you had the orange beets, Linelle? Husband of the couple we dined with said he doesn't like them as much as red beets.

Okay, arugula....I've never bought it but we had flatbread topped with baby arugula and caramelized onions once. Delicious!

Love 'em. Carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas- yum. From now until through winter we will have Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken w/Root Vegetables about every ten days. I also love beets- steamed beets in a salad are super. I consider them more of a spring root.

If you garden, there are spring turnips and winter turnips. Spring turnip are sweet and crisp, you can eat them raw. My favorite variety is Hakurei.

Other roots not previously mentioned are sunchokes, AKA Jerusalem Artichokes and Jicama.

mayflowers, I've never had orange beets. I'm crazy about the red.

Trader Joe's has bags of arugula with the other salad greens.

Parsnips are good roasted and pureed for soup. I like turnips but find rutabagas a bit strong for my liking on their own; if mashed with potatoes, I can handle it. I do enjoy parsley root in a soup or mash. One of my favorites is celery root although much of it grows above ground. I have tried to like beets, really I have, but they taste like dirt to me. I have tried them many ways too and just have not been won over. Even their greens bother me. Now radish greens, I can handle and enjoy as well as a good radish. I should be harvesting some sunchokes for the first time soon so they are still a mystery to me. I do enjoy jicama in a salad.

I had my first turnip last night! My son cooked one, and it was delicious. The taste was very similar to mashed potatoes. He cut them in chunks, boiled until tender, added butter, salt and pepper. Oh my. And I'm a very picky eater.

I've never eaten a beet and you can't make me either. Just looking at them after they're cooked makes me nauseous. :)

I can't stand hot beets, but I love them cold. I just made Rachel Rays red cabbage, beet and currant slaw...so delish. When I make it, I use less oil and I make sure to use a low-flavor oil like sunflower. Something like EVOO would overwhelm the dish.

It's probably easier to name the common root veggies I haven't eaten. One is jerusalem artichoke.

Parsnips are very sweet and have a higher glycemic index than white potatoes.

My Mom always made a dish of mashed carrots and turnips as a Thanksgiving side dish. She always added a cut up turnip to her beef stew. When I began making stew I left it out and there was definitely something missing in the broth. Turnips were an acquired taste for me.

My DH loves parsnips but I never had them growing up & couldn't stand the smell when I tried boiling them (as his Mom had prepared them) when we first married.. Recently I began adding them to a roasting pan of carrots and like them that way.

In fact, there are many vegetables I've grown to love roasted that I never really liked boiled - like Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes.

I've only had canned cold beets, which I like with vinegar. I do love steamed beet greens, though. Must expand my horizons and try roasted beets.

We love beets. Recently I discovered that I could slice and cook large beets, then cookie-cutter the slices. DS is going crazy for beet shapes! It also works with large carrot coins.

We also love most other root vegetables. Often we'll cut them into strips and roast them as an alternative to French fries. Otherwise, we'd be eating two carbs (bun + French fries) every time we served hot dogs or hamburgers.

Love beets, and recently had white beets which were wonderful. Also carrots (raw or roasted) and young turnips (and the tender greens too). Sweet potatoes are my fave! Not a fan of parsnips. Haven't really tried rutabagas in a long time.

I've found that with rutabagas the smaller ones are sweeter and more tender. Might be true of other roots.

I didn't know you could steam beet greens! Love the baby greens. Our market sells the spring salad mix in bulk, and when they have beet greens early in the spring, I try to get as many of them as possible.

I really had no idea there were so many ways to eat your roots!

I will roast carrots and parsnips together every once in a while-- mostly just for the looks because I am not the biggest parsnip lover either!! really like carrots!

grew up with turnips and never liked them- I remember my mom making white and yellow turnips and one was slightly better than the other! have chosen not to make them as an adult!

I have tried making beets several different ways -- trying to find a way that I really like them, but can't find a recipe that makes them taste good-- they taste earthy(like dirt) to me too!!

love jicama slaw, but don't buy and make it. occasionally look at yucca root at the store, but never bought that either

love potatoes and sweet potatoes! (tho agree, the white sweeties aren't as good!)

If you hated a vegetable as a kid, you should try it again as an adult. I had brussel sprouts at a friends house as a kid and never ate them again until about five years ago. I love them now. Broccoli, brussel sprouts and rutabagas have a slightly bitter component that I really like as an adult.

White and gold beets are my favorite; they're sweeter than the red. I try to buy bunches with fresh looking tops to steam or blanch and serve with a balsamic vinegar drizzle.

you know, that's true mayflowers... i probably should give turnips a try as an adult! (tho I don't think I can give lima beans another try...!)

Not exactly a root veggie but in season now- bulb fennel! So good roasted with a little lemon and garlic.

Borscht! Beets + cabbage, my personal faves. I make a big pot and eat it all myself. Even better days later.

Beets! Always liked beets, still do. DH makes borscht, so yummy. My uncle used to make whipped turnips for Thanksgiving. My own personal fave is sweet potatoes (I know, you said no 'taters) mashed with butter and a dash of maple syrup. mm-mmmmmm.

No Brussels sprouts. My kids used to like buffets because they could have Brussels sprouts, since I never, ever, make them at home.

Oh, I meant white taters. Have you ever made sweet potato pie? We prefer it over pumpkin pie.

I haven't had borscht but I've heard people rave about it.

The Trader Joe's flyer has an ad for a bag of colored carrots--white, red, yellow, and orange. It says that orange carrots were developed by Dutch botanists but it's not their natural color. I'm assuming that all these other colors of roots have a milder flavor, but maybe not.

Mayflowers, thanks for the thread! I picked up red and gold beets yesterday. Used the gold tonight in a baby arugula/spinach salad with goat cheese dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Tomorrow I'm roasting the red to go with a pork entree.

I mentioned to dh during dinner that some people think beets taste like dirt. He said they must not be peeling 'em. ;)

Cindy, your DH is a hoot. I wish peeling them would solve the problem. Beets are soooo pretty that I wish I could appreciate them. It just does not seem to be happening. I have grown other varieties to try as well such as the chioggia and the yellow and still have never been impressed. The first time DH made them, one our sons took a tentative bite and then just stared for a while and finally told DH that he thought they were poison. We just assume that we eat a wide variety of healthy foods so we can skip the beets.

Cindy, I can tell you're much more of a gourmet cook than I'll ever be! I don't have the knack for combining ingredients and coming up with something edible.

Our market does carry the golden beets but is there any difference between the red and gold?

I also thought parsnips were the size of carrots but they are big honkin' things!

I adore root veggies. I buy yellow beets and roast them. Carrots are amazing when roasted.

A favorite is kohlrabi.

I think beets do have a very earthy taste that i can imagine reminds some of dirt.. but i love the taste. I don't care for them pickled.. I like them steamed or roasted.

Trader Joe's had a frozen bag of roasted root vegetables. They looked lovely-- all different colors!

I have never seen golden beets- will look for them and give them a try..... i wonder if they will have a milder (less earthy) flavor since their color is less vibrant...

Golden beets are sweeter than red and the white variety is the sweetest of all.

Good advice Mayflowers. I didn't like turnips growing up but did try them again a couple of years ago - am I glad I did. I can't imagine missing out on such a treat. I'm making up for lost time. I tried to make a turnip soup once, and while it was okay, it didn't have enough oomph to hold its own. So I pureed it and froze it in cubes. One or two cubes added a nice layer of flavor to soup/stew.

Speaking of Fall vegetables, this is a great time of year for celery. Real celery with a glorious mass of leaves that are intensely flavored.

I make several quarts of celery soup this time of year because I can fortunately get really hearty celery at the farmers markets.

You can't get this flavor from those hearts of celery in the grocery store.

Kohlrabi is not a root vegetable. It grows above the ground not in it.

I've heard of roasting radishes but have never tried it...it would be a fun experiment some time...

My advice (if you want to take it from someone who thinks it's ok to mention kohlrabi in this thread!) is to cut the radish before you roast. The outer 'skin' is very tough and steams the inside.

The difference in texture doesn't make for the most pleasant result.