Week 2 Parsnips- Oy Vey!

For my second week I thought I’d tackle the vegetable that started it all - my “Name It or Get Hit With It” Vegetable: the Parsnip. Following the somewhat unclear signs at my grocery store, I eventually found the parsnips.  I decided this week to buy enough to make two different recipes using the Parsnip.

 

I had always heard of parsnips being used in soups, and had leftover turkey and thought I’d play it safe with my first recipe. My original though was for a Turkey Noodle Soup, but as I was looking around for ideas for my second parsnip recipe I came across a Chicken Matzo ball soup recipe. I asked Toby “Do you like Matzo balls?” He says “Uh, yeah, where have you been?” or something to that effect. I never made Matzo before- who knew? Well I know his mom knew, but besides that.  So my Turkey Noodle Soup was changed to Turkey Matzo Ball Soup.

I’m ready to make my soup, so I start with my parsnip. I’m looking it and have an “Ah-ha” moment.  It’s like a white carrot. I peel one and smell it. Yeah, it smells like a carrot. Interesting. Then I think- am I supposed to be peeling this? I figure, well you don’t have to peel carrots, so I peeled the one, and didn’t peel the other two parsnips. However, I discover later that the skin on a parsnip is thicker than a carrot- more like a potato skin. While it wasn’t bad to eat, I’d recommend peeling it if you try the recipe or work with parsnips in general.

A bit of advice: you may want to cut down this recipe a little bit.  I ended up with so many sautéed vegetables and so much chopped turkey in my pot that I had to switch the whole soup to my mega pot before I got to my liquids. My mega pot- it’s like a medieval artifact. Later that night, while I was washing this mega pot I imagined I was a servant in a medieval castle washing up after dinner. My pot had just been used to cook enough potatoes to feed the entire castle.  Anyway, back to soup!

Turkey Matzo Ball Soup

4 cups chopped cooked turkey

3 Parsnips, peeled and sliced

4-5 carrots peeled and sliced

3 celery stalks- sliced

1 small onion- chopped

1 zucchini (had it around and needed to be used- don’t need to have one though)- peeled and chopped

1 box Matzo Ball Mix (Manischewiz brand is good)- I used both packages you need eggs and vegetable oil to make the mix.

1  Tbsp Butter

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 boxes (32oz) chicken stock -  I had made my own turkey stock and probably had a little more than half a gallon so that’s about the same amount

1 Chicken Bullion Cube

8 Cups of Water

1. Make Matzo Ball Mix according to the box. It asks you to have it sit in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes so we want to make sure this is ready.
2. Heat a large (castle-feeding size) pot on medium-high add butter and olive oil (make sure you use a large pot that has a cover as you will need it when you get to step 4). When the butter is melted add the vegetables (except zucchini). Sauté for about 10 minutes, then add zucchini, sauté another 5 minutes.
3. Add turkey to the vegetables, then pour in the stock, add water, and bullion cube. Increase heat to bring the soup to a boil.
4. Pull out matzo ball batter, wet hands, create little balls- meatball size or smaller and drop into the boiling soup.  Matzo balls puff up rather large so don’t make your balls too big.  Once the Matzo balls are all in the soup, cover, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. After 20 minutes, remove cover, add salt and pepper to taste, and the soup is ready to serve!

Family Verdict:

Me: Soup was great. Loved the Matzo balls. The Parsnips cooked up to taste kind of like a carrot, but a little bit stronger carrot flavor.

Toby: Proclaimed the Parsnips to taste like soap, and he “choked them down.” I seriously need to stop asking his opinion when I really don’t want it.

Natalie: Ate her “white carrots” the same as the other veggies in the soup and she said they were good.

Conclusion: Where do I turn in my current husband for one who doesn’t hate every vegetable known to man?  Just kidding… he hates the ones not known to man too.

Parsnip Recipe #2  Honey Glazed Parsnips Ok, just kidding, it started out as honey glazed parsnips and turned into this:

Honey Glazed Carrots, Parsnips, and Pears with Feta

2 Parsnips, peeled and chunked

3-4 Carrots, peeled and chunked

2 Bosc Pears, chunked (we call them Golden Pears- but they are kind of brownish)

½ cup honey

½ warm water

2 Tbsp Brown sugar

1 Tbsp Butter

Feta Cheese, crumbled

Honey

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Steam the parsnips and carrots (NOT PEARS) for about 10-15 minutes to partially cook.
3. Combine honey, water, brown sugar and butter in a bowl. Warm in the microwave about 1 minute, stir.
4. Put vegetables/fruit in a large bowl. Pour honey mixture over the veggies and stir to coat.  Sprinkle a little salt and pepper for good measure.
5. Pour vegetables/sauce into a 9x12 glass baking dish. Cook in oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
6. Serve topped with feta and drizzled with honey

Notes: For goodness sake, please use real feta. The fat free feta I bought tasted like NOTHING. Feta with ZERO taste – it was terrible.  This recipe could have been so much better if I had the feta taste in there too. Maybe it was the brand- who knows, but ick boring.

Family Verdict:

Me: A sweet vegetable side dish with dinner is, at the start, actually a pretty hard thing to pair and not have dinner taste weird, so the poor recipe had a bad start to begin.  I made rib eye steak and baked potatoes. The steak wasn’t so bad with sweeter side, but the baked potatoes got mixed a little with the honey mixture and it wasn’t so good.  My feta cheese as is mentioned in the above note was terrible and tasted nothing like feta and, in fact, tasted more like “squishy white nothing balls”.  The savior to this dish was the drizzled honey at the end, and the pears of all things. I came up with the pear thing this afternoon when I was having a pear for a snack.  However, of the whole dish I have to admit that the parsnip was my least favorite of the dish. They had that strong flavor again. The recipe needs more tweeks, maybe no parsnips, add something savory to the mix as well- rosemary or just more black pepper?   So back to my verdict in regards to the Parsnip- I’d stick to soup.

Toby: “Still tastes like parsnip”

Natalie: No complaints, she ate the carrots, pears, and a little of the parsnip. I think she was on the same page as me- it wasn’t her favorite.

Conclusion:  Needs some experimentation, but it wasn’t a complete waste. It has potential to be a good veggie/fruit combination side dish, but I’d nix the parsnip personally and just stick to the carrots and pears. Still both fruits and veggies so it counts!

So that concludes Week #2 for the Veggie Experiment. Next week I think I’m going to try something a little closer to “normal” and safe.  I have a couple things in mind, so stay tuned.