There were parsnips in the garden after all! I was a tad late getting them in the ground last summer, but I do love parsnips and thought it was worth a chance. I planted a row but by season’s end, I thought they looked a little puny, and l didn’t bother to cover them for the winter. Yesterday, out in the garden I saw a few ferny tops and stuck the shovel in the ground and dug out a perfect, nicely sized carrot shaped parsnip! Whaaahooo. I have a whole row of them!
That is a good thing because I am not sure it is really April without parsnips to eat, the first thing I harvest from the garden, and the last thing from the previous year’s garden. So with parsnips now, all is right with the world. The next question is what to do with them.
There will be a parsnip stew, for sure. And parsnips roasted, and even grated raw into a carrot and parsnip slaw—very sweet. I thought about the usual stew ingredients: bacon, onion, parsnips, and potatoes and as I was chopping them, I wondered how they would be if I roasted them first instead of stewing them. So I cranked the oven to 450 degrees, spread them all in a roasting pan, added a little starter oil to prevent sticking until the bacon kicked in.
It smelled heavenly. How can you miss with onions and bacon both cooking?
I really like using evaporated milk for chowders and milky stews, so when the vegetables came out of the oven, I put them in a saucepan and added a can of evap, salt and pepper and let it simmer for a while. You could use half ‘n half, light cream, or milk.
Give this a try. Even parsnip skeptics find spring dug parsnips are a sweet treat, a completely different creature from fall harvested ones.
- 2 parsnips
- 2 medium potatoes
- 2 medium onions
- 2 slices of bacon
- Vegetable oil
- 1 12-ounce can evaporated milk or 1 ½ cups milk, half ‘n half or cream
- Salt and pepper
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Chop the parsnips, potatoes, and onions into small bite-sized pieces.
- Cut the bacon into small pieces.
- Dribble a very little oil into a roasting pan, and put all the vegetables and bacon into the pan, tossing everything once or twice.
- Roast for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the vegetables are just tender and browned.
- Scrape them into a saucepan, and add the milk, salt and pepper, and simmer for ten minutes. If you want more liquid, add a little water or more milk.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings.