New series: What do I do with...?

I've decided to start a new weekly series on Thursdays. Each week, I will take an item and give some ideas on the sort of things you can do with it.
I made this decision for two reasons:

Firstly, although you don't see a lot of comments on the blog posts themselves, I get a lot of feedback via Facebook, email and in person from readers, and some of you tell me that you feel encouraged to try something new - that my posts have given you the courage to step out of a rut. This humbles and gladdens me at the same time. But it also alerts me to the fact that some of you are in a food rut.

Secondly, although I don't have any pretensions to being like her, I watch Gillian McKeith's You are What you Eat and it is a recurring theme that people simply don't know how to prepare different foods, particularly fresh vegetables and grains. I reckon that this is how many of them started down the road that led to a visit from the McKeith (who, while blunt, is nowhere near the harridan she is often made out to be by her many detractors).

I know exactly how it feels to look at a vegetable and wonder (a) what it is and (b) what I'm supposed to do with it. In fact, I recently decided to address my ignorance in respect of eddoes (more of them anon), and it occurred to me that you might have similar frustrations, and that I could help there. I am a compulsive enabler. Always have been.

So, maybe you've always wanted to know what you're supposed to do with parsnips, or green beans, or quinoa. Well, let's see what we can do about that, shall we? Starting next Thursday. With beetroot (beets).