We're taking a break to recharge our batteries and will be back with a brand new episode on Monday 24 January. In the meantime, we'll still be hanging out on our Facebook page and don't forget we're all ears for your Blogger News. If you missed it last week, why not check out our Holiday Food episode right here.
Thank you for all your support and wonderful emails and comments throughout 2010. Happy holidays to you all and here's to a cracker of a 2011!
Nine long months after chucking the tiny seeds into ground, today we finally got to meet our parsnips.
"Just like having a bairn, but better… it's cheaper and you can eat them!" said Gareth.
The parsnips were buried under a couple of inches of ice from the late November snow plus some fresh powder from last night. I was worried they'd have rotted away but they were just waiting patiently and getting extremely large!
I'll spare you the three minute epic video of Gareth grunting and swearing as he wrestled this baby from the earth and fast-forward to the moment of triumph instead:
They are very weird and gnarly looking. Some have three legs from their attempts to burrow deeper into our crappy soil. But I still love them too bits. Did I mention they are freaking HUGE? Here I have used a 400g/14oz can of coconut milk for scale. The can is about 10cm/4 inches tall so you can get an idea of the height of them. Some of the tops have a bigger diameter than the can.
It just blows my mind that for nine months while we've been working, eating, sleeping, angsting, travelling and running around like idiots, these beasts were just growing growing growing like mad under the ground.
I made this parsnip and ginger soup tonight and it was bloody tasty. Still have gazillions of snips left for Christmas Day too. Happy days.
Today's other highlight: watching this pigeon refuse to let a snow shower interrupt his dinner.
Hello! Things will continue to be quiet at Chateau Dietgirl as I'm blogging like a crazy woman with the daily Reverb 10 prompts over at my non-fat blog. Topics so far include magical moments, slackarse writing, chorizo caves, cupcakes, beauty and baffies!
Also I'm busy lining up some nifty prizes ready for the Dietgirl 10th Birthday Sell-Out, coming up on 15 January 2011. After the frenzy that was the 9th Birthday Sell-Out, what better way to clock up a whole decade of indulgent ramblings by indulging those kind enough to read them? Stay tuned!
