I'VE been vegetarian for several years now and a regular question I get asked is 'what on earth do you eat for Christmas dinner?' My simple reply is 'everything but the meat,' because to me Christmas dinner, or in fact any roast, has always been about everything else. Yorkshire puds, veggie stuffing, crispy roast potatoes, honey glazed carrots. When you think about it the meat is a very small portion of what makes a roast so great.

The other week I cooked myself and my partner the first roast we've had after months of barbecues and summer salads and it reminded me just how great they are. I love roasting everything, from coulis and broccoli to radish and potatoes, but I have to say one of my favourite vegetables to roast is the parsnip. I adore their subtle sweetness, which seems to work differently to carrots, and how if you roast them in 'root-to-tip' wedges you get to enjoy the multi-textures of a crisp caramelised root and a soft and creamy top end.

We're actually growing parsnips on our veg patch this year but I'm afraid I couldn’t resist using some of the parsnips Cultivate have just got in from Westmill farm. I’ve sung the praises of their produce in previous columns so you'll understand why I had to try their crop of this royal root and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

What's great is that parsnips keep fantastically and can be left in the ground for some time, meaning they'll be around for plenty of winter roasts to come. In fact a group of Canadian researchers discovered that the sugar content in the vegetable increases in colder weather so we can expect even sweeter specimens once the frosts start to kick in.

This will make it no surprise that parsnips can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. I've even managed to unearth a recipe for burnt honey, vanilla and parsnip ice cream, which sounds like an absolutely heavenly desert to me. As far as I'm concerned you can bring on the cold weather, I'm ready with my thermals and an empty belly ready for a profusion of parsnips.