Lonely Little Parsnips

I have been thinking about parsnips all fall and winter. They're not a vegetable that is commonly eaten in the south, so I have never tried them.

Since I want to expand my culinary horizons, I bought some parsnips at the store a few days ago and decided I would serve them with a roast I was planning to cook in my new crockpot.

I searched the internet for a parsnip recipe and found this tasty-sounding dish from Simple Recipes:

The parsnip dish calls for horseradish and we even had some on hand!

I was salivating all day thinking about the juicy roast slow cooking away with organic whole berry cranberry sauce and beef broth, the spicy tingle of horseradish, wondering with great anticipation what the parsnips would taste like...apparently sweeter than turnips from what I read...and dreaming of the savory roasted red potatoes I also had planned for dinner.

But alas...after cooking all day, my roast was too tough to eat! I think it was the cut of meat--it had virtually no fat. That's only the second time in 30 years I've had a crockpot pot roast failure. (the second occurred on Christmas 2008 with a roast I got from Wal-Mart,and of course, there was nothing to fall back on, it being Christmas Day and all. At least last night I had a few emergency frozen pizzas on hand, that being Chicago Man's favorite back up food).

I will go back to Kroger and get another roast, and hopefully my money back for the first one. But in the meantime, my parsnips are languishing in the fridge, waiting to be cooked. I hope to enjoy them soon!