Amazing zucchini muffins (with a little bit of lemon)

There is a story that says that if you live where people are the salt of the earth, in the middle of summer, you better keep your doors locked. Not because these salt-of-the-earth neighbors are going to rob you, but because they are likely to drop off a big bunch of zucchini on the seat of your car or in your entryway, making eating it all it your problem.

I would like to think that my neighbors are the salt of the earth, but as of yet I haven't had any wayward zucchini harvests appearing in or on any of my property. (I also haven't been abandoning zucchini on anyone else's doorstep, either, though. The one time I tried to grow it bugs ate the teeny little seedlings down to nothing overnight.). However, it seems that even the farmers need to offload zucchini in great quantities.

My Abundant Harvest box has been... shall we say... generous in its helpings of zucchini and summer squash for quite a few weeks now. It is,,, shall we say... a challenge to keep up with it all.

My kids, who aren't the greatest veggie eaters, won't eat zucchini in any form except zucchini bread and zucchini muffins. (I'm not exaggerating. They even turned their noses up at chocolate chips cookies. Okay, Zucchini Chocolate Chip cookies, but those things are really really good and still they won't eat them).

So, zucchini muffins it is.  Except how many time can I make them without losing my mind?

So I put a little twist on the muffins this week... lemon. Lemon and zucchini go great together, and that is especially true in muffins. The lemon zest in these gives them a whole new life, and really sets them apart from ordinary zucchini muffins. This is most likely going to be the only way I make them from now on! I really like the lemon addition, so in my opinion, more is better. I used the zest from 1 lemon the first time I made these, and doubled it the send time. It was doubly delicious!

Zucchini muffins 

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

2/3 cup butter, melted

1 1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla 

zest from 2 lemons

3 cups grated zucchini (about 3 medium-large zucchini)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside. Using a mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together. Add the vanilla, lemon zest, and butter. Add the zucchini and then slowly add the dry ingredients until combined.

Grease your muffin cups with a little bit of butter. Fill the muffin cups pretty much all the way (these muffins grow tall nicely, and don't really spill over the pan... so it's okay to fill the cups all the way). 

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until nice and tall and golden brown. A toothpick should come out clean. Let them sit in the muffin pans for a few minutes and then take them out to cool completely.

The original recipe (from Stephanie's Kitchen) said that it makes 12 muffins, but I got 15 out of it, and they were still nice and tall and full.

Enjoy!

Parsnip Muffins (adapted from Alton Brown's recipe)

A little over a year ago, I tried a parsnip for the very first time. And then,  (new to the whole veggie box, and unsure of how to best get the vegetables out of the kitchen and into my gullet) I attacked the parsnips with gusto.

And very very quickly overdosed on parsnip.

I was fairly certain that no parsnip should ever pass my lips again. My little brother got married during this past year, and at his wedding the guests were served course after course of absolutely amazing food. Everything was locally sourced and fresh and seasonal and amazing. At the table where I was sitting, everyone raved about the vegetarian pot pie. I dove right in, and came up gasping for air... all I could taste was the parsnip.

However, the world continues to turn and the seasons to change, and the root vegetables to mature. And lo and behold, again came the parsnip. Out of the earth and into my kitchen.

I tentatively put one in a batch of vegetables I was roasting. I ate it nervously, and while I could taste it, it didn't leave me gagging.

This led me to try to give the parsnip another real chance. One relative success I had with them last year was muffins. I couldn't get the kids to eat them at that time, and I was already parsnip-weary, so many of them ended up going to waste. However, as I recalled, they were really pretty nice muffins.

Wow! Give me a year break from parsnips, and a fabulous muffin recipe, and I am a whole new woman!

These things are great! They really are nice and light and fluffy. They are sweet and the nutmeg gives them just enough interest. The kids aren't so afraid of my vegetable antics any more, and they gobbled these muffins all up right away. As a matter of fact, I am going to make more this week.

Parsnip muffins
This is basically Alton Brown's recipe, but I had to convert his measurements from weights into cups, so I thought I would just give it to you the easy way.

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups grated parsnip

Preheat the oven to 375.
Combine the flour, soda, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and set aside. In a mixer, combine the eggs, yogurt, oil and sugar until well blended. Add the parsnip and then the dry ingredients.
Mix until just combined.
Pour into greased (or paper-lined) muffin tins.

Bake for 20 minutes or until they're golden brown and they spring back to the touch.

Makes 16-18 muffins

dorset apple cake

I am trying out this idea of a blogging party. I think. Is that what you call it?  Or is it a link party? It's called the Improv Challenge. But it's planned very well in advance, so I am not sure where the Improv part comes in. Anyway, I was invited to this ... um, event, and I felt so very much like I am in the "in" crowd. Of course, I let them know that I would have to check my schedule and maybe pencil them in, just so I could seem even cooler. Really, though, who doesn't like being invited somewhere? Or sometime, as the case may be? I was rather touched.


I guess there will be a link to me, and down below all of my incessant rambling I am giving you a link to them. And by "them" I mean a whole bunch of other people who are participating. You need to click on that link and see what other, more creative people did to rise to the challenge. I can only imagine how inferior I am going to feel when I see what everyone else comes up with.


The challenge this month was to create something with apples and caramel. I think these people might be more of bakers than vegetable artisans, so we'll see how long our relationship goes before we have to claim artistic differences and go our separate ways. However, I must say we are off to a fabulous start. Maybe it's just the honeymoon stage, but they want me to use apples, and my Abundant Harvest Organics box this week contains many many tart green apples. You know how much I love to use up the items in that box! And if you don't know, welcome to my blog. This is where I complain about using up the vegetables and fruits that pour into my home at alarmingly speedy rates.


So, I was planning to cook something with these tart apples long before I got the invitation to be challenged. Or to improvise. Or to party or link or play along. 

One Thanksgiving, many many years ago, my sister-in-law hosted both sides of her family at her home. One of the guests was her grandmother, who had met her grandfather while he was stationed in Germany during World War II. She fell in love with the American soldier and followed him to the land of the free. Along with all of her worldly possessions,  her grandmother brought a recipe for apple cake from the Motherland. And then, she did some other things for 50 years, before she brought apple cake to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving. The cake was very very dense and rich and delicious. And it had apples in it. And I remember Großmutter mentioning that the cake called for no wet ingredients, but rather the moisture came entirely from the apples that were mixed in with all of the dry ingredients. Other than that, about all I can remember is that it was brownish (probably from cinnamon?), it was an entire sheet cake, and the dog ate all of the leftovers before morning.


Well, I always meant to get that recipe. But like many things I mean to do, I kept putting it off. And since my sister-in-law's grandmother died a few years later, I waited too long. I tried googling apple cake recipes. I tired search parameters like "German" and "no liquid" and "dense" and everything else I could think of. But I haven't found anything that seems like the right cake.


In other words, the cake I made here, today, has absolutely nothing to do with the old German grandmother I met at Thanksgiving long ago.


But it is a very delicious, not-too-sweet, dense apple cake, from the other side of the pond.


This one just happens to be small and round as opposed to a sheet cake. It happens to contain no cinnamon whatsoever. And it is from Dorset, in England, which is on the same continent but the other side of Germany in WWII. So, basically the similarities are that it is made with apples. 


I found the recipe for this when I was searching for that other cake. And although I tweaked it here and 
there to fit my needs, I am sure glad I stumbled on Dorset Apple Cake. I flipped it upside down by putting the apple slices in the pan first, sort of like a pineapple upside-down cake. I left out the sultanas, once I learned that they are actually raisins (yuck!) and I added some brown sugar to the top (which became the bottom) before baking, so it would have a nice caramel-y layer. I don't know this counts as a recipe with "apples and caramel" for this party/link/improv/event, but it's what I am submitting. 


It's not too sweet. It is really like a coffee cake. It doesn't have much in the way of liquids, and that turns out to be okay, because it has tons of apples that release their juices as they bake. This particular cake happened to go to the second grade teachers at my kids' school, after taking all 80 second graders on a field trip to the Nature Center where they met owls and went on hikes. If those teachers don't deserve a token of my appreciation, who does? And now I have hit two of the grade levels at school. Kindergarten, I am looking at you next!

The measurements are a bit wonky (as they say in and around Dorset, England), because I had to calculate all of the measurements from grams and ounces and tins to cups and teaspoons and cake pans. Bear with me, it's worth it.


 Dorset Apple Cake
(which mostly came from this recipe here.)


1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 teaspoons cornstarch
1 stick cold butter (plus more for the pan)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 pound apples, peeled, cored, and diced (about 2 cups)
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
2 more apples, skins still on, sliced into very thin wedges
1/4 cup brown sugar


First, preheat the oven to 375 fahrenheit, and prepare a 9-inch round baking dish by buttering it.


Sift together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. Cut the butter into small pieces and cut it into the flour mixture with a couple of forks or a pastry blender. The result should be a coarse, crumbly mixture. Stir in the chopped apples and sugar. 


In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg. Stir in the milk. Add this mixture to the flour and apple mixture. It will be very dry, but do your best to get it evenly distributed. Set this batter aside.


Slice two apples into very thin slices, and arrange them in concentric circles in the pan.

Carefully (so as not to disturb the arranged apples), put the batter into the pan. It is very dry and lumpy, so lightly press down on it to make it take shape.

Sprinkle the brown sugar over it all. This will caramelize in the oven, and give the cake a nice sweet, caramelly bottom once it is inverted.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until it is just starting to turn golden.

Let it cool before taking it out of the pan. If some of the apples stick in the pan, just gently release them and tuck them back where they belong of the top of the cake!

Enjoy!

And now, go enjoy some other ways people interpreted "apples and caramel."

 

zucchini-chocolate chip muffins

When I was a kid, you brought your teacher two gifts a year -- one at Christmas time and one on the last day of school. I think it cost between $5 and $10, and it was probably usually a box of chocolate, a coffee mug, or some sort of tchotchke or desk item. And the parents were done, and the teachers were appreciated and it was good.

Then the manufacturers got wind of this trend, and they started to capitalize on this trend by making specific "teacher" mugs and pads of paper that say "2 teach + 2 touch lives = 4-ever." They made funny ones and sentimental ones and cute ones and cheesy ones. So the parents went to the stores and bought the teacher-themed gifts and wrapped them up and sent them in. And the parents were happy and the teachers were appreciated and it was good.

Then word got out... maybe teachers don't really need any more mugs. Maybe they want something a little more for themselves and less for the classroom than a cute notepad or a pencil caddy. So the parents went to the stores, and they bought the lotion and the candles and the picture frames. And the teachers were surprised and the parents felt thoughtful and it was good.

And then the parents started to think. Maybe 32 bottles of lotion a year is too many? And maybe she doesn't need every apple-and-cinnamon scented candle there ever was and what exactly does "spring breeze" smell like? Meanwhile, Starbucks had invented "global domination" and had opened a store on the corner next to your school and the corner next to your house and inside the grocery store in between, and three more on top of and underneath and alongside all those first Starbucks stores. And the parents bought gift cards and they stuck them in a card and sent them in. And the parents felt that is was convenient and thoughtful and appreciated, and the teachers thought it was useful and a treat, and it was good.

And that's where we are. Which is great, especially because now we don't send in a gift only for Christmas and the end of the school year. We do send in a gift for those days, yes. But we add the teacher's birthday to the mix. We also have "Teacher Appreciation Week." Which is five more days of sending in something or other.

However, five days of Starbucks cards is silly, and she has so many candles they can be seen from space and she really doesn't want your kid's handprint in a frame. She is still washing her own kids' handprints off of her doorways. So, the "teacher appreciation committee" (do you see how far this has gone???) decides on a theme for each day. One day you do indeed get to send in a gift card for Starbucks, and one day you do get to send in a teacher-desk type school supply item -- but make it more glittery or special than the standard crayons and construction paper the school supplies anyway. And for days three, four, and five, you will probably be asked for a flower from your garden, a hand-made card, and a treat for the brunch in the teachers' lounge. It's lovely and manageable and most parents are happy to do something and really this isn't too much and we really truly do appreciate the teachers and we want to show them that.

But.

Have you seen a teacher's lounge during Teacher Appreciation Week? There are so many variations on doughnuts, muffins, coffee cake and cinnamon rolls that there is no room for the teachers to sit and enjoy any of it. The tables are covered and the counters are covered and the stuff is piling up and falling over.

And what do you think happens next? Some gets eaten. The teachers eat and the aides eat and the office staff eats and the custodian eats and the man who stocks the staff room vending machine eats. Then the PTA (the parents who brought the stuff in, remember) are told "Of course come have some! There is so much here! Let's not let it go to waste!"

And after that? It goes stale and it gets tossed. Out. Into the trash.

So every year I say to myself: Self, don't do it. Don't take precious hours to bake something lovely this week. Don't make a beautiful layered coffee cake and send it into the teacher lounge. First of all, it will never be seen among all the rest. Secondly, it won't be eaten. It will take up precious space where a teacher might like to set down a cup of coffee instead. And then later someone will have to throw it away and clean up the crumbs. Just wait a few weeks and do it then. They will be happy to have something a month from now when the long dry days of being back to under-appreciated teachers return.


But then I say to myself: Self, that stinks. If you can't bake a pan of muffins for these people, what is wrong with you? You really want to be the only person in the whole school who does nothing? Maybe if you had done it a month ago, you could skip it now. But even if you send in a note that says you are waiting for a hungrier time, it will just look like an excuse because you forgot to do it. Next year do it ahead. Ahead of time is okay. Late is not.


Every year.

But not this year! For once! I thought. I planned. I did it! I baked muffins for my daughter's grade-level teachers (I can't do the whole school at once. One grade at a time, thank you very much). I baked the muffins, wrote a note letting them know it was a pre-Appreciation Week snack, and really we appreciate them every week, and I sent them in.

Of course, I will still end up baking something during the actual week. I don't want to be the only person in the whole school who does nothing.

Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Adapted from the recipe here.

Makes 18 muffins or 36 mini-muffins

3 cups grated zucchini (or summer squash... I actually used a combination)
1 stick butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixer, combine everything but the chocolate chips, using the paddle attachment. If you prefer, you can mix by hand. I like to let the mixer run on low as I measure and add everything. It feels like multi-tasking. Turn the mixer off once it is all well combined, and stir in the chocolate chips.

Spray non-stick spray into the muffin pans (or use paper liners). Fill the muffin cups almost all the way to the top.

Bake mini-muffins for about 20-25 minutes, regular muffins for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

apricot syrup

When I was growing up, we had a huge apricot tree in my backyard. That tree was legendary among the kids of the neighborhood.

There were more and less productive years for that tree. One year, I distinctly remember heading to the yard, armed with paper grocery bags doubled up (this was before grocery stores even used plastic bags), and accompanied by my older brother, to muck our way through the deep layer of fruit that laid on the ground rotting. We were charged with scooping it up and throwing it away. I can only remember that one year that produced so much fruit. I know there must have been other years that were heavy, and there must have been plenty of years that weren't quite so impressive.

I can't remember ever eating an apricot from that tree, though. What made it legendary wasn't the apricots. It was the. best. climbing. tree. a kid could ever hope for. The tree was pretty huge, as far as fruit trees go. The trunk split into three limbs just about 2 feet off of the ground. Those limbs split pretty quickly, too. Climbing it wasn't any harder than climbing a ladder. Altogether, this meant that at any given moment the tree could be found full of 10 or more kids, ranging in age from just a couple of years old up to teenagers. We even had a dog at one point who would get up to six feet or so into that tree.

Eventually, if I remember correctly, the tree became diseased and had to be cut down. Luckily, that didn't happen until my brothers and I were just about out of the house and well past our tree climbing days. Unluckily, it was before I realized how amazing apricots are to eat and how easy they are to cook with.

As I learned this week, stone fruits (those with a pit inside) are divided into two categories: clingstone fruits and freestone fruits. They are just what they sound like -- freestones allow the pit to pop out cleanly, and clingstone fruits hang on to the pit like it's about to bolt for the nearest border. Apricots, thankfully, belong to the freestone group, and getting the pit out of an apricot is about as easy as it gets. Also, the skin of an apricot is sweet and tender, and doesn't need to be peeled off. That means that all the prep work an apricot requires is rinsing, halving and popping out the pit.

As I mentioned before, cherry week was speedily ended when I found myself the lucky recipient of a big crate of apricots.

These aren't the most beautiful apricots in the world, due to the fact that they survived a hail shower at one point in their youths, as well as the fact that they are ripening at breakneck speed as we speak.

They look just fabulous all cooked up, though!

The first thing I was determined to do was to make some apricot syrup. I am not a huge maple syrup gal, as it is just too sweet. Tooth achingly sweet, in my opinion. Apricot syrup, on the other hand, has enough tang to balance out the sweetness and make a stack of pancakes into heaven on a plate.

It is pretty simple to make, too. It doesn't take long, since you don't need it to thicken the way you need jam to, and the use of a blender to puree the apricots gets the consistency set for you.

Apricot Syrup
(makes about 8 half-pints)

about 20 apricots, rinsed, pit removed, and chopped up
1 cup water
4 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon corn syrup


In a blender, puree half of the apricots with half of the water, and then repeat with the other half. As you finish each half, pour it into a large stockpot. Add the remaining ingredients, and bring to a boil. Boil and stir for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Skim the foam off of the syrup. (Save this foam! I'll teach you how to turn it into a delicious cocktail tomorrow!) 


Pour the syrup into hot jars. (The jars need to be hot so that the glass doesn't crack when the hot syrup is poured in.) Fill each jar to 1/4 inch from the top. Wipe the edges of the jar clean. Place a lid on each jar, and screw on the band until it is finger-tip tight. Place the jars into a large pot of water, and boil for 5 minutes. (for higher elevations, check this chart for processing times). The water level needs to be 1-2 inches above the top of the jars. After 5 minutes, remove from the water using a jar lifter (or tongs). Let them sit, undisturbed for 12-24 hours. You will know if they are properly sealed if you press on the lid and it doesn't give at all.

Cherry muffins

Every Sunday morning, I get up at the crack of dawn (and even before dawn in the winter months) to walk about 10 miles with my friends. We are training because every year, about 8 or us do a 60-mile walk for breast cancer. It takes a lot of warm-up walks to make sure you are ready to walk all day for three days straight!

Anyway, our tradition has been to get up early on Sunday mornings, because that seems to be the only time that works well for most of us to get together regularly. These Sunday mornings are one of my favorite times of the week, because for 10 miles, I get to laugh, cry, commiserate and celebrate the things that have happened to each of us during the week. We give and get advice from one another, we share stories about our families, and we compare opinions of books, movies, TV shows, current events, etc. We quite often get into the realms of politics and religion. I think that these couple of uninterrupted hours we have together every week have made these friends some of my closest and favorite people.

At the end of 10 miles and a very early alarm clock, though, I come home exhausted! And hungry! (I certainly don't wake up any minutes sooner than I have to, in order to do something so banal as eating breakfast).

Yesterday was no exception. This week, due to having a load of very ripe cherries, I went for a batch of cherry streusel muffins. These are similar to blueberry muffins, but the cherries, due to being a bit heartier, don't break down and "bleed" as much. This makes the muffin nice and white, and the cherries stay juicy and beautifully red. They are very easy to make, and quite delicious!

Cherry Muffins

2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup milk
2 cups cherries, rinsed, pitted and halved

Streusel topping:
2 Tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons flour

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease the bottom of a muffin pan (12 muffins) or use paper liners.

Stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Add egg, oil, and milk, and stir until just combined. Gently fold in cherries.

Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

For the streusel topping, cut the butter into the sugar, cinnamon and flour, until it resembles coarse sand. Sprinkle this over the muffin batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown.

this post has been linked to Fresh Food Friday

heirlooms

In honor of my husband, who celebrated his birthday this weekend, here is a little story about his mom.

One day, she sent him a note (he lived about 60 miles or so from her) and included 3 recipes, written out on index cards.

They were for zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, and banana bread.

These were definitely things that she had baked for her family over the years, but she wasn't a huge baker. She was more of a spaghetti night, taco night, kind of mom. They ate family meals together growing up, but nothing gourmet or fancy. Just yummy and filling. These recipes are the same... there is nothing particularly special about her breads. They are just what you want pumpkin and zucchini and banana bread to be. Delicious, sweet, and familiar.

I don't think he asked for these particular recipes. I imagine that she just thought it would be a good thing for him to have... maybe in a moment of missing her son, or of wanting him to have a little taste of home. Maybe she knew how little money he was trying to survive on (as a university researcher just out of college), and thought that he might want to be able to have a cheap treat.

Whatever the reason, as it turned out, these three recipe cards would end up being the only things he has that have her handwriting.

I don't think she knew that... I don't think he realized it until he came across them, stored in a desk, much much later. But as it turns out, the comfort of the warm tasty bread is only as important as the recipe itself. She died a few months later, after battling cancer for years and years.

Zucchini Bread

Combine in a large bowl:

1 ¾ c. flour

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 c. sugar

Add and mix thoroughly:

2 eggs (slightly beaten)

1/3 c. oil

1 t. vanilla

¼ c. milk

1 c. zucchini (shredded, unpeeled)

Pour into greased loaf pan (2-3 mini loaves). Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes (45 mins for mini loaves)

enough with the lemons, already!

This is the last lemon recipe I am going to share with you, I promise. Unless I find another one I like.

My daughter has been asking and asking me to make lemon pancakes, after she saw a recipe for them in her magazine.  I am not usually up to cooking big breakfasts on school days... scrambled eggs can be considered a gourmet meal around here. But, she is just so dang sweet, and she doesn't ask for much.

Of course, (don't tell her this) I had to fiddle with the recipe a bit.

These are actually not as bad for you as some pancakes might be, due to the fact that I used wheat flour and they contain plain yogurt. The lightness of the lemon nicely balances the chewiness of the whole wheat.

Good morning to you!

Lemon Pancakes

2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
4 Tablespoons oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
additional milk to thin, if desired

Mix egg, milk, yogurt and oil; beat lightly. Add flour, baking powder, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice, and mix well. Add more milk if desired for thinner pancakes.
Spoon onto hot griddle, cooking until golden brown on each side.

Parsnip Muffins

One of the first "odd" vegetables I remember getting was parsnips. 2 pounds of parsnips that week.

I am sure that I have heard of parsnips before, but I certainly had no image in my mind of what a parsnip really was.

In case you wonder, a parsnip is sort of like a white carrot. It looks pretty much like a carrot (only white) and it tastes pretty carroty. Except much stronger. I think gamey is a term reserved for meat (like buffalo is supposed to be like beef only more gamey). I think a parsnip is like a carrot, only more gamey.

With our weekly delivery of produce, we get a little newsletter. This one told me that parsnips can be eaten raw or cooked. They are often mashed into potatoes, and used in soups and salads.

Raw? I thought? And like a carrot? So I tried one. I scrubbed it and bit into it. Not bad. I sat down and at just about all of it... until I couldn't stand another bite. Just too strong.

Well, it occurred to me that if it was like a carrot in so many ways, maybe I could make carrot muffins out of it. I was about to get out my carrot cake recipe, when my next thought was to google a recipe for parsnip muffins. I found a GREAT one!  It calls for plain yogurt, which makes the muffins light and fluffy. I made the mistake of putting one extra parsnip in, more than was called for, though. (After all, I had two damn pounds of the suckers to use up!) The muffins ended up a little too parsnip-y (although my opinion is tainted by already being tired of parsnips in the first place).

The final result: I liked the muffins (but I also try not to eat many carbs, so I only ate one or 2 of 2 dozen), my kids refused to eat them. Then, they went bad and we threw the rest away. Was it a success? I have to say it was a very tentative success. The final result was a tasty, light, fluffy muffin. But, we threw away a lot of food.

In case you are interested, here is the recipe. Good luck and enjoy!