Parsnips - the "Other" Carrot

Parsnips sound like a mean veggie. The grouchy old aunt of vegetables. Maybe b/c it reminds me of words like persnickety (fussy about small details - having the characteristics of a snob), or parsimonious (frugal to the point of stinginess), and snippy (short tempered, snappish). Makes you kind of think parsnips would taste hard and bitter.

As mean as it sounded, we bought some. I do think I have tasted it cooked before (maybe mixed in with some potatoes??) - but my earliest association with it might have been when I was just a young girl. I think of parsnips and I think of Rosie.

Rosie was a little girl that lived in the house behind me. She had super long, beautiful, brown hair that was always done up in two very tight braids. Her hair was so long and heavy that she claimed it gave her headaches... or maybe it was the braids being too tight that gave her the headaches... One day her dad chopped off her hair. It didn't look beautiful anymore. Her dad also pierced her ears for her with a needle and thread when she was young (and she had loops of thread or string hanging from her ears until they healed). Her parents were from Germany and they seemed old and grouchy.

I can almost picture the two of us out in her backyard digging up parsnips from the garden and eating them (I'm sure we rinsed off the dirt or at least wiped off the dirt first) . This was very likely how it happened b/c she also introduced me to the delightful snack of eating a raw potato with salt sprinkled on it (gag). Since the neighborhood rhubarb patch that us kids sometimes "borrowed" rhubarb from, was just across Rosie's driveway, she is probably the one I also shared stalks of rhubarb with (w/some sugar of course).

I couldn't remember though what those parsnips tasted like, and since the kids had never tasted them before - it was basically something new for us all.

I found it odd that there was such a heavy coating of wax on the outside of the parsnips - but that all got peeled off. I placed the cut up 'snips in some water and boiled them like I'd boil potatoes.


The taste was interesting. Sweet, a bit nutty, and also another flavor that is hard to describe - it kind of has a "bite" to it, some type of spiciness...reminds me of a radish or turnip maybe. I think I'd like them better mixed in a stew or mixed in with potatoes, so the flavor would not be so strong.

Ds kind of dreaded tasting it being that when cooked it looked like potatoes, his least favorite veggie. But he tasted it and thought it was sweet and maybe even a bit better than potatoes.

Dd, who LOVES carrots - wasn't all that impressed with this white carrot interloper. She actually would have liked it better raw I'm sure since she loves raw turnips.

You got to feel a bit sorry for parsnips - they've been around for many moons and were the veggie of choice before people realized you could eat potatoes. In "olden times" b/c the parsnips are so sweet - they would even be eaten more as a dessert cooked up with some honey. I guess you could use them instead of carrots in a carrot cake.

Do you have any great parsnips recipes??

Finger Lickin' Good Fingerling Potatoes

Today I cooked up a mess of "Fingerling Potatoes". They are little and cute. "Irresistibly cute" says the package. And they were and are.

Even regular foods can seem "exotic" and exciting when they are miniature. At least I thought so.

Until I saw this bag in the supermarket, I didn't even know they existed. Of course I have had the little red "baby" or "new" potatoes before...but these were smaller and fun shapes.

The fingerlings came in a 2 lb bag that contained an assortment of 4 different varieties - Rose Finn, Russian Banana, French Fingerling and LaRatte.

I especially liked the yellowish Russian Banana, that yes, did look like a mini banana.

I didn't have much time today so I just ended up boiling the fingerlings, which was probably the most unexciting way to fix them - but at least we'd have the true flavor.

I really liked them...they seemed creamier and less dry than your garden variety potatoes.

The kids were not too thrilled. As noted before, ds HATES any kind of potato unless the word chip follows it or it's disguised as a French Fry. Dd used to like potatoes but now she insists that she ONLY likes sweet potatoes. All other potatoes are eaten with a grim face.

The cuteness didn't work for the kids.

I would love to roast a batch of these in the same pan with chicken or beef - so I think that's what I will do the next time I buy them.

The kind of haze you see in the picture below is the steam coming up from the potatoes - I LOVE my new camera!

Big Taro Root or Malanga Coco

This is the deal. I made sure I wrote down the names of the unusual produce we purchased b/c I knew I'd never remember them. When we got home I tried doing a search on each of the items. And there is where it got a bit complicated.

I wrote down "Boniato", the name written directly above the produce bin I took the veggie from...but on my receipt it said "Malanga Coco"... and then based on the research I did online - it appears to actually be "Big Taro Root".

I searched around a lot and couldn't come up with any conclusive evidence that these names are all synonyms for the same vegetable. But I'm going to call it Big Taro Root (BTR) b/c in a description for it, I read "white flesh that may be speckled with what resembles grated chocolate." The article also talked about how dry the big taro root is. And that matches to a t the root I cut open.

I decided to microwave the BTR - took about 8 minutes (it's an old microwave probably 20 years old - so might be quicker in a newer microwave), and I poked it all over with a fork before cooking it.

Soon an unusual smell filled the kitchen. It was not at all a baked-potato smell like I was expecting. It had more of a baked muffin odor is how I'd describe it.

Once I cut open the BTR I was happy to see the "chocolate speckled" flesh. In the center of the half though there was a white circle. The outer portions of the BTR were softer than the inner white area - could be it needed a couple more minutes of microwaving.
















My ds said "it tastes like mashed potatoes". My dd said "like a sweet potato - very dry".

I really liked it - and seemed like the girl liked it - the boy, hating potatoes of any kind - was all set up in his mind not to like it - and he only barely tasted it.

It was not nearly as sweet as a sweet potato - and did not taste like a regular potato (sorry I'm not good at describing). But from what I've read it has a "distinct artichoke heart and chestnut flavor".

It was very dry. Reminded me of the dryness and consistency of the yoke in a hardboiled egg. I'd much rather eat the BTR than a sweet potato.

Polish Style Red Borsch Soup

I found a cute little package of borsch soup and decided to give it a try. The directions are simple - just add water. Can't mess that up. The listed ingredients are: beet powder, vegetable fat, sugar, salt, citric acid.

My children are of Polish descent along with Ukrainian, Scottish and Swedish (on my family's side) and German (on my husband's side of the family).

I have tried homemade borsch made by my mother when I was growing up. This delicious, hearty soup contained things like cabbage, onions, dill weed, beets and potatoes. Usually mom would serve it with tea biscuits (what Americans might call baking soda biscuits) - yum!

My dd enjoys canned sliced beets, so I figured she might like this soup. Wasn't too sure about the boy.

Let's just say I was the only one who finished my soup. The soup was a beautiful red color with flecks of something floating on top (parsley??). It had a pleasant, sweetish beet taste. Though the color was pretty, and the taste all right - it definitely needed some bulking up. If you didn't have beets on hand and wanted to make beet soup - this package would make a good base for the soup - just throw in some cabbage, potatoes etc., to thicken it up and make it into a meal rather than an appetizer.

I made some "tea biscuits" to serve with the soup.

Purple Potato Eater

We were meandering through the produce section of the world market, when I came across some purple potatoes. The outsides didn't look very purple-y, but I bought four of them, hoping the inside would be purple.

I read that purple potatoes were originally from Peru and were reserved for the Inca kings and that yes they are purple inside.

I decided to bake them in the microwave...poked each one with a fork a few times (squirting bits of purple potato juice onto my white kitchen curtains) and baked them one at a time for about 6 minutes (it's an old microwave).

I sliced open a baked potato and was excited to see the beautiful royal purple inside.

The kids were excited to see the potatoes and to taste them...well one of them was excited about tasting it. My son has HATED potatoes every since I first started giving him bits of mashed potato as a baby. A gag reflex inducing food for the poor lad. As he has aged, he has decided he does like potato chips and french fries (though more than 1/2 the time at McDonalds he only eats a few and the rest of us fight over who gets the rest) and once he ate some scalloped potatoes that were swimming in a pool of cheese and butter and enjoyed those. But, for the most part he HATES potatoes and usually has to drown them in ketchup to finish the few bits on his plate, his mean mother forces him to eat.


How did they taste? We all agreed they tasted pretty much like....a regular potato. My dd said "It tasted perfectly normal. Only thing I liked about it was the color. The color was un-potato like." The boy said something like "yeah that's what I think." I am not a Food Connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination - so if there was any subtle taste difference, it was lost on me.

The purple potato is apparently high in antioxidants - so it has "brains" as well as "beauty".

I will definitely buy these again - they were kind of expensive for everyday potatoes (about $2.50 for the 4 little spuds we bought) - but I'd like to try making purple mashed potatoes or something "fancier" with them.