113 grams of swede

I picked my first swede today. I needed one for Delia's shepherd's pie and one of the ones in the garden looked big enough.

I was expecting the swede to look similar below the soil line to what it looked like above, but I was wrong. It wasn't just one big, bulbous, edible root, it was a mass of little ones.

I bashed as much soil as I could off it, then took it in to the kitchen to wash it. But actually, I found myself washing valuable topsoil down the drain.

So I decided to take a different approach and cut off the roots then take them back outside for composting.

I think they must just hack the roots off straight across in supermarkets, as I've never seen the end looking like that on a supermarket one - mind you, nor have I ever seen such a diddy one at the shops.

After I'd cut more of the roots off and peeled it I had 113 grams of swede left.

The recipe only called for 75 grams, but it would have been a real waste not to use the whole thing, and besides, the more veg I can sneak into the other half's dinner the better (left to his own devices it's possible he'd live on nothing but Super Noodles and chocolate, so every little helps). I personally don't think I chopped the veg quite fine enough this time, I should have chopped finer to start with or gone over it a while longer with the knife.

But the other half was pretty pleased with the result: