Please Your Vegetable Sweet Tooth with Carrot and Parsnip Puree

SAM_1202

If you grow parsnips then you know that this is the best time to dig and enjoy them. Overwintering in the ground turns parsnips into candy. Still, there are some who look askance at them, and it occurs to me that perhaps this combination with carrots might make a parsnip lover out of the doubters. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like carrots though surely there must be some who wrinkle their noses and avert their gaze in the presence of a carrot.

This idea for serving these two root vegetables came from my island neighbor Linda Gillies who brought the dish to a potluck. Her version was very smooth, downright creamy, sweet and lovely.

At our house, we like a little texture, so I mashed them vigorously with a potato masher and hit it only briefly with a stick blender. Have I mentioned how much I love that stick blender? You can puree even hot soup with it, beat eggs and flour together for crepes, and whip lumps out of anything. It is a wonderful tool, and easier to wash than a stand blender.

You can tip the proportions of the carrots and parsnips any way you like. I chose equal quantities and served four with a pound and a half of vegetables. Jazz it up a little or not at all to your taste. Some add snipped chives; some like a little ginger added.

P.S. We have discovered who Nancy is of Brownie Schrumpf’s Nancy’s Pork Chops and Apples. And several of you contacted me with precious Brownie memories. Next week I will share these with you and dig out another recipe from her cookbook for you to try.

Carrot and Parsnip Puree
 
Ingredients
  • Carrots
  • Parsnips
  • Butter and/or olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Peel and chop the vegetables.
  2. Put them in a pan and barely cover with water.
  3. Boil the vegetables together until very tender.
  4. Mash or puree to your preferred texture.
  5. Add butter and/or olive oil to taste.
  6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

 

 

Sandy Oliver

About Sandy Oliver

Sandy Oliver Sandy is a freelance food writer with the column Taste Buds appearing weekly since 2006 in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and The Working Waterfront. Besides freelance food writing, she is a pioneering food historian beginning her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. After moving to Maine in 1988, Sandy wrote, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century published in 1995. She is the author of The Food of Colonial and Federal America published in fall of 2005, and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin. She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and in sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot where she gardens, preserves, cooks and teaches sustainable lifeways.