Parsnips!

All the recent sun has caused my remaining parsnips to start to re-sprout so I decided that today was the day to dig them all up and finally clear the carrot and parsnip bed ready for the year. Half an hour later and I had unearthed a wopping 26 parsnips!

I had no idea there were so many remaining, almost half of them were well over a foot long so I was suddenly in possession of a serious amount of parsnip. The variety that I grew was 'Gladiator' and considering that all I did was drop the seeds into the soil, thin after a few months and then wait it is quite brilliant to have such a good harvest, parsnips are certainly top of the growing list for this year.

40 minutes of washing and drying later and I was ready to start the cooking, 3 of the particularly large ones went into a fantastic spicy parsnip soup, 5 more are destined for roasting and all the others have been par-boiled, cooled and then frozen for later.

The soup was quite amazingly good, thick, creamy and just the right amount of spice, of course I couldn't say all this without sharing the recipe so here it is:

Spicy Parsnip soup

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:
50g unsalted butter
600g parsnips (or turnips, swede, potatoes, or a mixture of all), washed, peeled and cubed
1.5 litres of vegetable stock
1 large onion, peeled and sliced finely
3 tablespoons runny honey
2 teaspoons garam masala
Optional - 150 ml live bio-yoghurt

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a low heat, then add the onion and heat gently for 5 minutes.

Add the vegetables and stir to coat with the butter, then remove from the heat and drizzle in the honey, stir well to coat evenly.

Pour in the stock and bring to the boil

Simmer until the vegetables are tender, should be about 20 minutes, then cool slightly before liquidizing in the food processor or blender.

Return to the heat and stir through the garam masala and the yoghurt, if using.