When Oregano experiments with preparing food, Mrs Oregano usually gets very nervous. It is not that she does not try new things herself, but she either fears that the boys will get nothing to eat or there will be a terrible mess in the kitchen (usually true 
) or that there will be smoke pouring out of the extractor (not too often 
). Usually when Mrs Oregano is nervous, this stresses Oregano and he makes more mistakes and then cooking shifts from relaxation to an angry experience.
This weekend Mrs Oregano is abroad visiting her family. So it was a good opportunity to try some new things. Oregano originally planned doing bangers and mash...but ended up incorporating 3 experiments.
One reason was that there there were not enough potatoes, but some parsnips lying around. The second reason is that I have been reading two cookbooks we have had a while but rarely used. The third reason is that if I provide good quality sausages, my boys will tolerate some experimentation round about.
By the way the books I read were:
a) The Humble Spud, Hamlyn, ISBN 0 600 60586 8, 2000
This goes into a wide variety of preparing potatoes with a little on parsnips and sweet potatoes. Some stuff is familiar. For example in the Netherlands, Mrs Oregano's family combine kale, endive or other green vegetables with mashed potato. A few things were new or things that I had eaten before but never made for myself like Rösti.
b) The best 100 Tapas, Aldeasa, ISBN 84 8003 340 1, 2003
This explains basic tapas (though misses my favourite pincho moruno) and soups.
The experiments were a mixed bag as you can see from the following postings
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