...Brussels sprouts...YUM...

when I was at Raley's, the other day...
cornering the market on Brussels sprouts, "au naturale"...
a lady in line behind me said...
" I never knew how they grew...
I always had them frozen, from a box...
maybe that's why I always hated them..."

indeed...

and probably boiled, to boot...
as the checker said her family always did them...

YUCK...

I'm a farm girl, wore shoes only to go to "town"...
[in the summer, of course... too cold in the winter..]

but I digress...

we didn't eat them a lot when I was a kid...
but as Mom grew older, and discovered her toaster oven...
she would "roast" them in a small dish for holidays...

I discovered oven/pan roasting with olive oil & Kosher salt...
by watching Food Network... it was serendipity...




this is how they grow...the "sprouts are immature flower buds...
if the "sprout" begins to elongate, it's too old and isn't good to eat...
the top few buds of a stalk are generally way too mature to use...
so I always buy extra stalks in order to have the freshest, tenderest sprouts...

if I have to buy the already cut off ones...
I look for fresh cut stems & small, tight green buds...



this time of the year, you can find the stalks in the stores...
the sprouts stay fresher and sweeter on the stalk, than when cut off...
you might say,"sweeter?"...who cares ?
if you're roasting & caramelizing the sugars...you should...




in this closer shot of a stalk...
you can see how tight and compact the sprouts are...
if they are starting to elongate at all...
they will be bitter... yuck...



it took me a couple of hours...
to pop them off the stalk...
[if they are really fresh, they snap right off...these did...]
and to trim them up by cutting off the protruding core stem...
and peeling off any dark or damaged outer leaves...
[also bitter & NOT good eats...]

leaving me with this...



2 LARGE paper grocery bags of stalks & all the trimmings...

and these...



yes...they look like little cabbages [same family...]
which is why roasting & caramelizing the natural sugars...
is the ONLY way to cook them...
like the rest of the cabbage family, boiling releases the natural sulphur...
hence the foul stench/taste that generations have hated...
the caramelized sugars counteract the sulphur...



so after all the prep...I had about 8 quarts of them...

which I spread out on 3...
heavy weight full sized sheet pans...
I coated them with extra virgin olive oil...
sprinkled them with Kosher salt...



and put them in my newly cleaned[it works better that way...]
well pre-heated, 400˚ oven...
and checked them at about 40 mins...

since there were 3 pans, close together...
I knew the time would vary...[1 pan is always 40 mins.]
so I switched the pans around on the racks...
[the center pan wasn't browned at all]
and checked again in about 8 mins...

then I took out the top & bottom pans...
& moved the middle one to the top for another 8 mins...
and then, as they had browned, I took them out...



they have filled the house with their nutty aroma...
and are making me hungry already....

"we" like them, not only with the meal...
but as "fingerfood"...



finger food that's actually good for you...

besides that... they're REALLY tasty... YUM !!