Not with you lot encouraging me all the time. :-p
Yesterday I bought a stew pack that contained a swede.
After nearly chopping my fingers off peeling it I chopped it and put it in the frying pan to brown with numerous other vegetables.
Then I put them all in the oven to roast. After an hour all were cooked except the swede chunks which were still hard, so I boiled them for ten minutes to no avail. Then microwaved for another ten.
They were just about edible but neither soft nor tasty.
I shall never buy one again. What a useless piece of food, not fit for human consumption!
Swede is good for dieting though:
ā¢ Canāt prepare them ā
ā¢ Canāt cook them ā
ā¢ Canāt eat them ā
ā¢ Bingo, no weight put on ā
Better than any of the conventional diets! 
That is really weird as swedes usually soften quite quickly (we are still talking about the vegetable variety here 
)
Maybe it was a realllly old one the bunged in with the rest?
One of the farmers along our road supplies most of the UK supermarkets with swedes (we call them turnips in Norn Iron). We would find the occasional one which had literally fallen off the back of the lorry 
saved buying them! 
We used to have a black labrador and in typical lab fashion she could not resist bringing one home and devouring it on the back grass, and then stinking the house out for the next couple of days with turnip f@rt$ā¦ :shock: :roll:
Two things to remember ā¦
If you try to cut a swede down the middle the knife gets stuck.
I would have boiled them for twenty mins to half and hour until soft then roasted. They are great in mash, stew or soup. Perhaps you had a rogue one!
I think it must have been a rogue one. Any I have used have been tender just roasting 30-40 mins or boiling for around 20 mins.
Yes, sounds like a rogue swede! I know a swede can be left safely for 3 to 4 weeks before it starts turning soft and goes off, but I never leave it for more than 5/6 days before using it up.
If I am roasting it, and I can get to the stage of cubing it into 1inch cubes without cutting my fingers off, I usually put them into a saucepan of boiling water for 10 minutes before draining them, putting them back into the saucepan onto a very low heat just to get rid of the excess water for a couple of minutes and then transfer them to the roasting tin with the other veg, oil sprinkled over them and roasted for 25-30 minutes. I never trust vegetables to be soft enough by putting them directly into the oven for roasting, potatoes, thickly cut carrots, swede, turniip, all my veg get the 10 minute boiling water treatment first.
I certainly donāt like my veg overcooked, but likewise, I loathe veg that has been roasted for the required time and yet turn out soft AND hard in parts. At least by doing it the way I do, the veg never fails to turn out soft.
Sorry, hate food cooked al dente. :surprised:
Yes I should probably have boiled first, but still donāt think Iāll try again with this flavourless cricket ball.
Honestly Xandra, Swede tastes lovely with a sprinkling of Nutmeg and a knob of real butter, or home-made carrot and swede mash (or even mashed with potatoes, carrots and finely chopped cooked onion to accompany He Who Must Obeyās favourite mid-week meal of Veggie Mashed Potato, Pork Sausages, Garden Peas and Onion Gravy).
A swede goes on my shopping list without fail.
LOL - no vegetables ever go to waste in this household. If I canāt use them all up for dinners before buying fresh I just cook all of the last of them, Potatoes,Swede, Onion, Carrots Sweetcorn, Peas, - for MY favourite breakfast - Bubble & Squeak with a Poached Egg on top. Yum
Please donāt let one rogue swede put you off
was the oven on?
53 posts about a vegetable, now 54! Now thatās pretty good going, often posts about far more serious subjects than that donāt even get one post!
There are so many lovely vegetables out there, I think swedes would come pretty low on my top hundred.
Potatoes are probably the most versatile, but which are the most delicious?
Savoury swede cakes 
Mashed and held together with egg & bread. Add your own flavours (google), fry. 
I find sweet potatoes equally challenging SG!
Many veggie recipes use them because of the protein content.
I remember at one point through a curry recipe I couldnāt get my (professional standard) Cookās knife through one.
Even with all my upper body pressure on it, it wouldnāt budge!
So I tried to retract itā¦ but it was stuck fast in the dense, orange flesh!!
In the end I had to get another knife and start cutting into the centre from the other side. I was so scared of slipping my hands on to the embedded and up-turned knifeā¦ I eventually prised the dang potato open with a wooden spoon!!!
I also buy the frozen variety now!!! 
What is strange is that sweet potatoes are much tougher than ordinary potatoes when raw but they cook in half the time. :shock:
Twilight Zone stuff indeed!