Cooking parsnips

I’ve never grown parsnips successfully, so I just let them go to seed for the bees. I share the seed with my neighbour and he brings me parsnips from his garden.

Recently he brought me some with apologies for them being a bit on the small side. They had thick cores and long skinny roots :

I love mashed parsnips and because we’d just had a cool change after a couple of days of oppressive heat and I was sick of salads, I decided on hot veggies for dinner.

Normally, I’d cut off the skinniest part of the root, peel what was left then cut into sections, discarding the tough core. With these, it was obvious there wasn’t going to be much left if I did that. So I used my veggie peeler to slice off long strips until I reached the core and was able to use most of the root. I cooked the peelings in a casserole in the microwave and then mashed them with butter and S&P :

(If you always do your mashed parsnips this way, don’t write and tell me. I want to believe I’ve been fantastically clever for just a little bit longer!).