Ugly Edibles..

There are plenty of things that are ugly and unappetizing to gaze upon,
but are wonderful to eat. Here are two that are going around my house today.


These lumpy, rooty mutants are celeriac roots. I dug them up before
the bitter cold and they have been sitting and waiting on my counter since then.
Celeriac is wonderfully easy to grow, but takes a long season.
I started the seeds last spring in a flat and it seemed to take forever for them
to get big enough to prick out.
I planted them out and never touched them or looked at them again until fall.
I did make one error, though. I planted them in soil that was too rich in nitrogen for them.
Like all roots crops they prefer a lean soil or you get rampant leafy growth
and lots of little roots shooting off everywhere. As a result, my celeriac is a little small and very hairy. I washed them up a bit and gave them a haircut and stored them in the fridge.
If I were storing them long term, I would have just cut most of the leafy tops back and stored cool and moist dirt and all.
These will not last long around here. I will carve up several tonight to add to a roast root veggie dish.




And I as a bit bored today and wanted to use some black bananas I
had been keeping in the freezer. They are not an exotic type of fruit,
just uneaten and going downhill fast.
So I went poking in the larder and came up with the remnants of a bag of prunes. They were the cherry essence ones, and, Voila! A banana-prune bread.
I know it looks very much like a Bundt cake, but all of my bread pans are being used out in the barn for various reasons.
It looks ugly, but it sure is good, made with lots of ginger and cinnamon
to round out the flavors.

Off I go to tackle a smoked ham that I pulled from the oven. Now that I think about it.. it is pretty ugly too.