PARSNIP RECIPES

I still have a lot of dehydrated parsnip, so this one looked good. I added a little grated onion and garlic.

PARSNIP-AVOCADO SOUP
based on a recipe found on chidiet.net blog

1  lg parsnip
1/2 C water or celery juice
1  lg stalk celery, peeled
1/4  avocado
2  t flaxseed oil
1  squeeze lemon juice
1/2  t sea salt (to taste)
dried parsley (optional, for garnish)

• Process parsnip in food processor to a fine grated texture.
• Peel celery.
• Cut up avocado.
• In a VitaMix, process parsnip, water (or celery juice), oil, and lemon juice until smooth.
• Add remaining ingredients, and continue processing until smooth.
• If desired, garnish with a sprinkle of parsley

PARSNIP “RICE”
Parsnips were new to me last year.  I had no clue what to do with them.  I saw one recipe using them for “sushi rice”, but that was about it.  Finally, since they are root vegetables,  I decided to do what I do with beets and turnips….

I grated  and mixed them with olive oil once, and then I grated them and mixed them with apple cider vinegar and a little garlic.  The olive oil version is more like rice, but I like the vinegar version best.

I can do this recipe with fresh parsnips or soaked dehydrated parsnips. 

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WHAT I MADE TONIGHT

I did not have much in the way of fresh food (like NONE) in the house tonight, owing to the fact that, until Thursday, I expected to be on the Master Cleanse for another 3 – 4 weeks.

Still, I was responsible for making a dinner that my SAD diet room-mate would gladly eat. Hmn… Creativity needed>
I do have a number of bags full of vegetables I have dehydrated over the winter, and some leftovers from the summer, so…..

• I dug out my last little bit of wakame (about 1/2 C) and soaked it.
• I soaked about 1/2 handful of dehydrated turnip.
• I ground up about a handful of dehydrated red bell pepper slices.
• I finely chopped 1/2 onion.
• I also soaked @ 1/2 C of dehydrated parsnips.
• I combined the wakame with the turnip and the bell pepper powder, and added some garlic powder, olive oil, and apple cider vinegar.
• To the parsnips, I added some olive oil and a little black pepper.

That was dinner. I found the wakame salad very filling and satisfying (such an interesting word – you know when you eat something and you *feel* like it is what you needed)
The parsnips were good… like rice…

I am going to take the leftovers to work tomorrow for lunch.

GOTCHA!!!! What about my CSA share while I’m on the Master Cleanse?

No, you won’t catch me sleeping (at least, not for long!)

When I started my Master Cleanse, I immediately worried about what to do with all the carrots, beets, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, garlic, celeriac, apples, and potatoes I was going to get on Thursday.  I did not worry long… I gave half of my potatoes to Mrs. Murphy, my next-door neighbor lady from Scotland, who is 79 years old and having trouble getting around — she just loves potatoes!!!   For the rest, I have a dehydrator (nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!!!!)

I immediately went into the refrigerator and pulled out all of the beets, carrots, rutabagas, celeriac, radishes, and garlic that were still left in there from before, washed them, peeled them, cut them up, processed them to applesauce  texture, and dehydrated them… On Valentine’s Day, I got more.  Tonight I am taking care of that.  I only have some watermelon radishes left to dehydrate (I am debating whether to slice them to paper thin and dehydrate, or just process them finely.  I will probably go with the finely processed option.

Since I figured out , during the “summer CSA distribution” that I could dehydrate lettuce and mystery greens, to deal with later, and since I dehydrated  those 40 lbs. of  tomatoes in last summer, I have been a dangerous girl when facing down vegetables!!!  Now, what I cannot consume goes to the food processor post haste. (I can always  figure out what to do with it later– usually I just soak it and add it to sea vegetable salads, pates, crackers, pates.)

 So, I reckon I have dehdrated about 20 lbs. of beets (they all fit in one large ZipLoc baggie, and about 20 lbs. of carrots, (1 ziploc).  

I will give some more apples to Mrs. Murphy, and then I will dehydrate the rest , maybe making some fruit leather out or some of them, some rings out of some of them, and then powder for juices and sweetening from the rest of them. 

I need to look at dehydrating potatoes.  I have heard that soaking them will remove the starch.  I have not seen any information on dehydrating them.  I guess I will risk soaking them for 8 hours then dehydrating  them. Then I will find out if you can do that, and publish the results of my experiment.

I drink my lemonade while I am processing all these vegetables and fruit, so I don’t have the temptation to eat any of them.  I just think about possible recipes while I work.  I am excited about having a wide variety of ingredients to work with when I do get back to solid food.

CSA WINTER SHARE: What I Got

Yesterday’s was the third CSA Winter Share delivery, and the first one where I have had enough time to catalog what I got.

In this winter share, we get 25 lbs of vegetables and “some” fruit. It seems to be mostly the same each time, actually. I also get 1/2 gal. of apple cider.

Yesterday I got:
• carrots (lots and lots)
• potatoes (quite a few)
• 6 parsnips
• 2 watermelon radishes
• 2 tiny heads of garlic
• about 10 beets
• 2 turnips
• Maybe 10 lbs of apples and pears

I gave Mrs. Murphy, the elderly lady next door, 4 apples, 3 pears, and maybe half of the potatoes. She has been saying that she couldn’t eat pears because they aren’t soft enough, and this kind that we got are very soft, to the point that they will die after about 2 days.

The watermelon radishes are kind of interesting. They almost look like turnips – they are white, and they are quite a bit larger than the red radishes you see in the supermarket. The only thing to really distinguish them from turnips is that the tops are green instead of purple. Inside they are red. They do taste radish-y, though.

What does all of this mean, recipe-wise?
Well, Thursday night, I spiralized a turnip, a beet, and a carrot, and added them to some soaked hijiki seaweed, sprinkled some of my dehydrated garlic and onion, some Italian spices, and some Spike, added about a tablespoon of olive oil and another tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, mixed it up well, and let it marinate for about a half hour.
It was good, even though I forgot to add in the radish I had planned to spiralize.

Last night, I ate some more of the mix, but I knew I would not have the heart to eat it a third day in a row, so I decided to see what would happen if I put it in pattie shapes in the dehydrator. I put the mix in the food processor and ground it to applesauce texture,  and then spooned the mixture onto teflex sheets, mashed the lumps in to round patties, and left them to dehydrate for about 6 hours. They weren’t dry enough to flip onto a screen, so I left them for 10 more hours. They turned out crunchy and fishy/meaty tasting, with a slightly bitter tang. I like the taste, so I will take them to work for lunch tomorrow.

That leaves me with all the beets, all the apples and pears, etc.

On Monday I am going to head to the market to see if I can pick up some avocados and onions, to make sushi…. I have nori sheets, and I have heard that parsnips make a credible rice substitute, so I can make sushi (I have some sprouted sunflower seeds I could grind up into a paste if I feel I need some serious protein). I will grate up some carrots and beets and add them, too.

I like to process beets and turnips fine in the food processor and add apple cider vinegar and a little olive oil, so I will probably do that for lunch tomorrow, and throw some of the sunflower sprouts on top, just to see what happens when they sit on apple cider vinegared vegetables for 6 hours.

I will probably end up finely processing the beets and turnips and dehydrating them for later use in salads and smoothies, and as snacks.

I will probably take more potatoes to Mrs. Murphy next week. I know raw potato recipes, but I just never feel like making them. I take that as a sign that they are not good for me. Mrs. Murphy will be happy… she likes mashed potatoes and hashed brown potatoes.

Tomorrow morning, I will process about 6 apples and pears to make apple sauce for breakfast, and I will take what I can’t eat to work for a snack. Tomorrow night, I will probably process about 10 apples and pears to make juice.

The next delivery will be in 3 weeks, so I have plenty of time to figure out how to eat everything. Since this coincides with my rent check, I will have plenty of chances to be creative, since money for any other groceries will be scarce. Perhaps I will learn to make soups. With this many beets, I could probably make borsht.

SON OF CSA: I got into the Winter CSA

There I was all worried that I would have to start paying a lot to buy vegetables between now and next May when the CSA starts up again.  When I heard that there was a possibility of a winter share, I was there!  Local seasonal vegetables? Need I say more?

I did not really think I would get into the Winter Share: they said there were only 30 shares available, by lottery, and, by my count, on the last night of the CSA, 76 people said they wanted in.  Of course, wanting in involved sending an email and praying– the selection was to be by lottery.  Intensely cynically, I figured there were about 8 core members, and add to that their good friends, which would leave maybe 8 real lottery  slots.  Lo and behold… only 21 people applied, so everyone who wanted a piece of the action got in, including me!!!! 

Okay, it is the wrong time for this girl who lives on a shoestring….but I will pull in the belt, make presents from what is already here, forego yoga for another month….  BECAUSE the $250 I paid will bring me organic vegetables, fruit of some sort (probably apples), and raw cider once a month for the next 5 months.

 The winter share is 20 lbs of “farmer’s choice”. 

My share today included a whole lot  of potatoes, about 5 lbs of really big carrots, several unusual-looking  beets of different sizes, 2 big celeriac bulbs, leeks, 2 “personal-size” heads of broccoli, 1 small bunch of kale, 2 bulbs of garlic, a small head of cabbage, and several lbs of parsnips.  

Getting home with all that in my bag on my back was a challenge — the streets were slick with slush from the “snowstorm” we were supposed to have today…  I walked the LOOOOOOONG block to the subway and opted to take the N train into town, walk across the platform at Lexington, and take my R train back home (still an incredibly lucky commute, considering I was doing rush hour and toting 20 lbs of vegetables.  That way, my actual walk with the vegetables on my back was only about 1 long and 2 short blocks. (halleluia!!!!)  This is the way life works here (if you live in “car-land”, try to imagine walking 1/4 mile with 20 lbs over your shoulder and wobbling around on your back)