Brussel Sprouts? I Just Can't Go There.

For some reason this post is publishing weird. I know it's distracting, but I can't figure out why it's doing this, so hopefully it won't bug you as much as it's bugging me! Must be the brussel sprouts.

I love to cook. I will try to cook almost anything. Over the years I have learned that things I thought tasted bad (broccoli, peas), are actually good when cooked properly. I love websites like Pinterest and apps like Yummly, on which I can spend hours pinning or “yum’ing” hundreds of recipes. This summer I have been trying to use my CSA veggies that we get from Bluestem Farms to try new things. Roasting vegetables has been one way that I have been experimenting with unfamiliar foods like radishes and beets. I have really been stretching the limits of my culinary experimentation even when it has come to using ingredients like tofu. But there is one food that I simply cannot CANNOT bring myself to experiment with and that’s brussel sprouts. I have seen recipe after recipe of brussel sprouts happily adorning salads and as delightful side dishes with wonderful looking sauces. But to me, brussel sprouts are that evil bitter tasting side dish that sat on my plate until bone cold at 9:00 at night while I waited out my mom’s “You will sit there until you clean your plate” command. But brussel sprouts seem to have become popular these days. If you look on Pinterest or Yummly you can find pages of recipes for them. I have been vehemently against cooking them until I started watching some cooking videos from my favorite healthy cooking guru, Dani Spies. She is a blogger and YouTuber who has all kinds of instructional videos and recipes. When I have an ingredient I don’t know what to do with (e.g. Hakurei Turnips) I will usually search her site and see if she has posted anything about them. One day in particular I kept stumbling across recipes for roasted brussel sprouts. Curiosity overtook me and I thought “maybe?” As I started watching the video I got this bad feeling deep in the pit of my stomach and I quickly paused it like one does when getting to the scary “Don’t open that door!” part of a horror movie. After about a half-hour I returned to the video and with an upset stomach and determination I watched the remainder of the video, “How to Roast Brussel Sprouts” and watched Dani tell me how to make these evil little demons into delectable morsels. As she nibbled on the completed product she said “This recipe is sure to make anyone into a brussel sprout lover!” They actually looked somewhat tempting, but as to whether or not I’ll actually get over my brusselsproutphobia is yet to be seen. Like I said, I’ll cook almost anything…almost. 

P.S. Just in case you are a BS lover (I couldn’t resist) here is the recipe:

http://cleananddelicious.com/2013/02/27/video-how-to-roast-brussels-sprouts-a-clean-eating-recipe/

The 'Good Little Cooker'

A recent recipe success- Chicken/bacon alfredo pizza. Yum!!

The other day my husband Tom and I were in the car and out of the blue he said, “You’ve really gotten to be a good little cooker.”
To tell you the truth, that’s quite a compliment considering how far I’ve come with my culinary skills.
As I was growing up I never had much interest in learning how to cook. When the food was on the table, I sat down and ate it.
When I got married my lack of experience was evident. I don’t remember a whole lot of my cooking from back then, but I do know that I made spaghetti so much that Tom began calling it “Old Standby.”
Tom grew up with a mom that was an excellent cook. She loved cooking and was very good at it — actually, she still is. Back then my incompetence in the kitchen reared its ugly head on more than one occasion. I called her frequently with my culinary emergencies.
The first thing she did was give me cookbook titled “The Absolute Beginner’s Cookbook: or, How Long Do I Cook a 3-Minute Egg?” by Jackie Eddy and Eleanor Clark.
Since she lived much closer than my own mother, she made dinner for us about twice a week. She’d include the recipe with the food, so if we liked it, I could make it again.
To this day I am extremely grateful for her help and generosity.
When we moved from Sault Ste. Marie to Charlevoix I was on my own again. We were back to “Old Standby” and lots of BC Pizza.
I did try, but I hadn’t built up the confidence to make anything that didn’t have cream of something soup in it.
A few years ago I flipped to Food Network and caught “30 Minute Meals” with Rachael Ray. She made cooking seem so effortless. It was like she was talking right to me.
As I continued to watch her show, print off the recipes and then make them myself, my awkwardness and fear of making meals containing more than five ingredients started to fade.
I started to hear, “This is good Mom. Make it again!” I got more and more confident and began to take risks in the kitchen. A friend even mentioned to me that my son, Robby, told her Rachael Ray had saved my life.
I don’t know if she really did save my life, or if it was my mother-in-law, or my incredibly patient and understanding family.
All I know is that I wear the title of “Good Little Cooker” with honor.

Published May, 2010