Parsnips and Nightmares

8th January 2013 

While I’m working on the bigger blogging picture in this e-course I’m doing - ( which is really getting me thinking) - just a couple of things from today....

For the first time -  in weeks it feels like -  I want to cook something - apart from scrambling eggs or opening a tin of tuna or baking a potato and not really wanting to eat it anyway. 

The only caveat is that the meal must be centred around root vegetables as my husband comes home from the allotment this morning with a hundredweight of giant knobbly, knarled, and long whiskered parsnips in a muddy plastic bag.

This is what ends up on our plates tonight - 

A mound of parsnip and Crown Prince squash whisked into a turmeric coloured puree with a slick of white coconut oil, and then laced through with sweet fried onions and chips of garlic........

quarters of boiled beetroot the colour of garnets.....

a fan of melted baby spinch leaves and crisp broccoli florets.....

topped with a pale gold, soft-boiled egg...

a shower of toasted sunflower seeds and 

a  red dollop of a Spicy Tomato Chutney highlighed with cumin and fennel seeds  - a Christmas present from my nephew via Rubies in the Rubble ( a very inspiring company - check them out at www.rubiesintherubble.com

The only trouble is that is's too easy to fork in just one more smooth savoury mouthful  - as comforting as a whole box of popcorn in the dark of the cinema.

And last night - or the early hours this morning I wake with a scream in my throat - the howl of a wolf snared in barbed wire.....in my dream my husband is trying to kill me. My animal noise wakes him too.

Darling, he says - it’s alright, and lays his hand on my hip.

I lie curled away from him, listening to my thudding heart and a dog barking in the street ....no one soothing it to stop.