How I Came to Love Parsnips

Confession:  I didn't really like vegetables until a few years ago.

Sure, I'd forced down peas, green beans, and broccoli in every possible iteration throughout childhood. But I didn't really like it. And I didn't try other veggies. I hated anything raw. Healthy food just didn't taste good.

At the end of college, with my athletic career wrapping up and my metabolism slowing (dang!), I wanted to establish healthy living habits for my entire life -- exercise, eat right, keep my mind sharp, give back to others.  Lofty goals, I know, but it took this complete change in my mindset to make me want to give vegetables (and lots of other healthy foods) a chance.

My mainstay was steamed broccoli or green beans tossed with butter or lemon juice.  More recently, I've begun to explore new produce.  Kale--made into crispy, light-as-air chips.  Carrots--roasted in pomegranate molasses (a la Melissa Clark).  Broccolini--tossed with butter (some things shouldn't be messed with). Steamed snap peas--with an Asian dipping sauce I could drink out of the bowl. And parsnips--roasted to bring out their inherent sweetness.

This is the recipe I tried that made me love parsnips, that humble and often overlooked root vegetable that deserves some love.


Roasted Parsnips with Orange, Cumin, and Honey
From Sassy Radish (get the original recipe here)

Parsnips look like white carrots without the green top.
I typically find them in a bin in the refrigerated produce section,
next to the loose carrots and rutabagas.

Peeled and cut into roughly the same size pieces.

After roasting, the parsnips luxuriate in their sauce,
tender, juicy, sweet, and spicy.

And if sweetly golden roasted parsnips weren't enough, this delectable parsnip cake from A Plum By Any Other Name will get you started. The cake itself is a bit unusual -- olive oil takes the place of canola or vegetable oil, giving a lovely mildly grassy flavor to the cake.  And please don't omit the cointreau-soaked figs. They're juicy pockets of deliciousness scattered throughout the moist spice cake.

Parsnip Cake with Rum-Cream Cheese Frosting

From A Plum by Any Other Name (get the original recipe here)

Two layers of parsnip cake, fresh out of the oven.

Adding dark rum to the cream cheese frosting offered
a subtle spicy note that made the frosting
different from the usual incarnation.

A healthy slice of parsnip cake, studded with
walnuts, orange zest, and Cointreau-soaked figs.