The Wonderfrugal Radish

I am unashamedly stealing a word from a charming poster from the Community at Dollar Stretcher, latte4me2day. "Wonderfrugal" seems to describe certain things so well that it should be in the dictionary.

Anyway, you've seen the pictures of my runaway radishes. Planted in June, harvested in October (or was that November?) these French breakfast radishes grew and grew and grew... I left them alone because I wanted to get seed from them. They didn't set seed until it was too late and the tender tips froze, but the huge roots were... well, huge.

Curious, I dug and pulled them up, chopped off the tops and put them in a pan of water, wondering what in the world I was going to do with them.

A day later my sister came for dinner and I decided to slice off some of the root to see if it was edible. It was, very much so. Mild and crunchy, it tasted pretty much like radish, but a little like a turnip, too. My sister wondered if it could be cooked like a turnip.

Since I could never eat all of them, I decided to try. Today, I cut a couple of pieces off and cooked them. Oh, it was good! Just a hint of the bitter edge that puts me off turnips, but with a wonderful, edgy bite to it. I decided that I'd cut up the rest of the two radishes and cook them and might try to freeze them for later (they really were huge - one was about 18 inches long, the other slightly shorter and 3 to 5 inches through the middle).

One of the roots had divided about half way down and when I pulled them apart, the center was eaten out, woody and yucky looking. I sliced off a piece from an outer knob and accidentally dropped the rest to the counter top.

Now, I'm not prone to screaming or squealing at creatures of any kind, but I was surely tempted. A big, fat worm was wriggling desperately to get back to his "safe" hiding place. I don't have anything against worms - I love them in the garden, but on my kitchen counter??!

I scraped off the rest of the radishes into the trash and took it outside. I was brave enough to put three pieces on my plate for supper. I only ate one. I know that's silly and I'll eat the rest later when the picture of that squirmy, wiggly thing has faded a little from my memory.

And wonderfrugal though they may have been, I'll harvest them sooner next time.