Search Results for "brussels sprouts"

To say that I am loving my LetterFolk letter board is an understatement! Inspiring and fun, that’s what it is!

Anyhow, along with the Spring Vegetable Flower Tart and Fresh Spring Pea Hummus for Easter brunch, I served ham, Pomegranate Molasses Lamb Chops, and Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

The ham was embarrassingly easy.

I stirred a cup of brown sugar and a can of pineapple in a slow cooker, added the ham, turned it on LOW for 2 hours, pulled it out, and slapped it on a platter. Connor, my dad, and Dave raved about it. Who knew!?!

For the Brussels sprouts, when you trim off the ends and cut them in half, you’ll end up with a pile of loose leaves. Don’t throw them out!

Set aside and after the sprouts are blanched, blanch and refresh the leaves, dry and use them in a salad for another meal. Yum!

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This is one of the recipes I made for the 2016 Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck and it is a winner any time of year. It only has four ingredients and can be made well in advance, then thrown in the oven at the last minute.

I’d love to be able to tell you that these are just as good reheated the next day, but I’ve never had even one left any time I’ve made them test that theory.

Of course, in my opinion, anything wrapped in bacon is the perfect appetizer for any occasion!

Bacon-Wrapped Maple Brussels Sprouts

• 15 Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed
• 15 pieces of bacon (regular cut, not thick cut)
• 5 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
• Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a small pot of water to a simmer. Add the sprouts and cook for 8 minutes. Drain and set aside. Cut in half through the stem end when they are cool enough to handle.

Fry bacon, in batches, in a large skillet until it is just beginning to brown but still pliable. Drain on paper towels.

What you’re looking for here is the exact opposite of what you ever what to have served at breakfast – you’re looking for limp bacon.

Place the Brussels sprouts in the same skillet, in the bacon drippings, that you cooked the bacon in, add 2 tablespoons of the maple syrup and sauté for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels.

Cut each slice of bacon in half crosswise and then wrap each sprout half with a half piece of bacon. Secure with a toothpick. At this point, the wrapped sprouts may be either cooked or covered and refrigerated for up to 12 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place sprouts on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until bacon is crisp.

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These tasty flatbreads have so much going for them.

1. They are easy and quick to make
2. They have bacon
3. The bread is prepared naan, with no dough to knead
4. Did I mention that they have bacon?
5. The ingredient list is short, with only five things, one of which is bacon!

I haven’t had bacon in a long time, as you can tell, I’ve really missed it.

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As I mentioned in my last post on Friday, my friend, Ronnie, sent me the challenge to come up with a recipe with what she had in her pantry and refrigerator. You’ll find that recipe and the photos that Ronnie took of the process and of the finished dish below. If you would like to participate and send me a challenge of your own, please do! Just send an email to [email protected] with a list of what you have on hand and I will come up with a plan for using those items to make a dish/meal. Then you make the dish/meal and send me photos of the process and the finished dish to share here. Please type Pantry/Refrigerator Challenge in the subject line of your email.

On March 31, I received this text from Ronnie:

“OK, Let’s challenge LHop. What can I make with frozen Brussels sprouts, barley, vege broth??? Oh, I do have some frozen ground beef and shrimp. Maybe ‘Challenge LHop’ can be a new addition for your website.”

My response:

“Let’s see, the only thing I can really think of with that combination would be to cook the barley in the vegetable stock.

If the Brussels sprouts are still frozen when you read this, you could process them through the food processor with a slicing blade before they thaw completely so they aren’t soft and mushy.

Then lay the slices out on paper towels to thaw and drain. Use more paper towels to firmly pat out any excess water once they’re completely thawed and then pan fry them in a little olive oil to crisp them up.

As you remove them from the skillet, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then sauté the onion and a couple of cloves of garlic in the same pan.

Return the Brussels sprouts and the barley to the skillet and if you have any cheese, such as Parmesan or asiago- add the grated cheese and maybe some nuts to it at the very end. Almonds, pine nuts, walnuts,  pecans whatever you have on hand. 

You could serve that as a warm salad with some shrimp that you throw on the barbie.

You have a week to pull off these two pranks. It only took me about 15 minutes to “make” my fruit and vegetable Easter chocolates. I can’t wait to see the reactions!

I went to Target to shop for the foil-covered chocolate eggs. After carefully examining what was available, I decided on the Nestle Crunch Nest Eggs over the traditional Hershey’s Eggs because they were slightly larger. You see, you’ll be swapping out the chocolate eggs for grapes, so a similar size is a necessity. The Nestle Butterfinger Nest Eggs were a perfect size too, but the foil isn’t as pretty or “Eastery”  – yes that’s a word!

April Fool’s Fruit and Vegetable Easter Chocolates

• Nestle Crunch Nest Eggs
• grapes
• Ferrero Rocher Chocolates
• Brussels sprouts
• a bit of patience

Very carefully and slowly loosen the foil on a Crunch Chocolate Egg. On the first one I attempted, I made the mistake of completely opening up the foil. Don’t do that! It is too hard to fold it back together nicely.

Instead, open the foil just enough to remove the chocolate egg.

When choosing your grape, go a little smaller, rather than larger or the exact same size. I used the grape on the left.

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Sweet Zoey and me testing the appetizer I made for Tram and Steve’s St. Patrick’s Day/Going-Away dinner party last Friday night. Zoey and Zak were not fans of the Guinness Fondue, but they did love all the dippers for it.

One of the dippers is blanched Brussels sprouts.

To blanch them; trim the ends and cut them in half. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Add sprouts and boil for 3 or 4 minutes, or until a paring knife pierces a sprout easily. Drain and then shock in ice water. Drain on paper towels and leave at room temperature until serving time. Note: When you’re trimming and halving the sprouts, you’ll end up with a pile of single leaves. I blanched the leaves first for about 30 seconds, shocked and drained them, and used them in a salad the next day. Zero waste!

Also a note about another dipper – the pretzel roll cubes. I didn’t have time to get to Costco and buy a package of their pretzel rolls, which are the best around, in my opinion. Instead, I bought the Trader Joe’s pretzel rolls. You know I love my Trader Joe’s, but there is no comparison between the two rolls. The Costco variety is saltier and way more pretzel-y. Lesson learned.

One last note before the recipe. I know, I’ve got so much to say about this easy-breezy appetizer! A third and very important dipper is apple cubes. In my rush to assemble and set out the appetizer when I arrived at Tram’s, I forgot to add the apple cubes to the serving tray. I felt like something was missing, but I brushed it off. Finally, a guest asked, “What is this container of apple cubes for?” Darn it! Don’t forget to put them out because they add a much-needed light and bright color to the tray of dippers and are a delicious fresh addition to the overall taste choices. *If you look closely in the left upper corner of the photo above, you’ll see them in their storage container with the purple trimmed lid. Oh well.

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In my recent post about canned vegetables, I encouraged you to share your own childhood food nightmare stories. After Lori shared her story about hiding Brussels sprouts in her bedroom dresser and Amy shared about having to sit at Girl Scout camp with an ever-growing brick of Shredded Wheat in front of her, while her friends went on a hike, I knew I had to share my ultimate childhood food nightmare with you.

This is the house I grew up in. All my childhood food nightmares happened in this house. The majority of those nightmares occurred in the mornings of the late fall and winter months. Summer, spring, and early fall weren’t much better.

Breakfast, which is now one of my favorite and most reliable meals, was the dreaded meal for my younger self. The source of the dread was cereal. I really do not like cereal. I never have and I never will!

On a typical day, our cupboards held only three types of cold cereal; Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and Corn Flakes. For readers who are far younger than I, let me educate you: this was before Frosted Corn Flakes, before Cocoa Krispies, and before Honey-Nut Cheerios. Brands such as Trix, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs were available, just not in our house.

Looking back, I have to look back because I haven’t had a bowl of cereal since I moved out of my parents’ home! Anyhow, looking back, I think what I hated about cereal was that it got soggy quickly and the milk was never cold enough. The warming milk and disintegrating cereal, especially the Corn Flakes, was beyond disgusting to me. I literally couldn’t stomach it.

My first choice was always Cheerios, I’d put as little in my bowl as allowed, add the milk and try to shove it down as fast as possible before the milk warmed and the Cheerios had a chance to even think of sinking to the bottom of the bowl. My goal was to get to them while they were floating.

The second choice, when the Cheerios were gone, was Rice Krispies. The same deal here, try to shovel them in before they could snap, crackle, or pop more than a couple of times.

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When I was growing up, we very seldom had fresh vegetables. No frozen vegetables either. Canned vegetables, that’s what we ate.

There was the occasional fresh corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, potatoes, and of course, lettuce – mostly iceberg. But tinny-tasting canned veggies were king at our house.

• Canned peas (mushy with an unappetizing dull green-gray in color)
• Canned green beans (ditto)
• Canned beets (I can’t even!)
• Canned lima beans (Please, NO!)
• Canned spinach (especially tinny, watery, and gray-green)
• Canned carrots (the worst of them all!)
• Canned corn (this is the only one that I will eat today – I admit to  a strange weakness for canned cream corn)

Exceptions: Canned beans (pinto, black, kidney, etc.) and canned tomatoes – these are allowed in my pantry and in my cooking. Although I’m always using them as a component in a dish, not just heating them up and eating them as is.

It goes without saying, that I hated most vegetables throughout my childhood and into early adulthood. And it took years to get up the courage to taste fresh versions of those canned nightmares.

It took decades longer to try “exotic” (think asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and the like) vegetables. Today, I love almost all vegetables. The only holdouts that I still can’t acquire a taste for are beets (taste like dirt to me) and carrots. I know, carrots, of all things, but I still don’t like them cooked or even raw.

I didn’t have my first Brussels sprout until 1999 or 2000 and I didn’t see them fresh on the stalk until 2013 when I posted this recipe. Seriously, I never had seen them on the stalk before that day when I walked into Trader Joe’s and there was that strange-looking thing!  Now they are one of my favorite, especially roasted, as in this easy side dish.

**Please feel free to share any of your childhood “food nightmares” in the comments section. I have more, a real whopper of a tale involving hot cereals.

* After all, that nightmare talk, let me say that growing up in Scottsdale wasn’t all that bad. I mean when you wake up to a sunrise like this, you know that life is nothing but good!

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On Christmas Eve eve, December 23rd, I hosted my annual Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck party. It’s a great format for a fun stress-free holiday party. To find out exactly how it works, go to This Post from the 2015 party and get all the “How To” details.

In the days to follow, I’ll post the recipe for each. As an added bonus – at the end of today’s post you’ll find my signature cocktail for the evening.

Here is a rundown of the dishes made and brought by the guests … with a few contributed by me.

Antipasto Skewers

Greek Quesadillas

Bacon Wrapped Maple Brussels Sprouts

Smoked Salmon-Cucumber Rounds

Spicy Chicken Cheeseballs

Caesar Dip and Crudités

Bacon Candy

Shrimp Scampi Dip

Holiday Brie en Croute

I’m calling my signature cocktail “winter berry” but in all honesty, these are summer berries. Oh well, summer or winter, it’s a keeper!

Winter Berry-Rosemary Cocktail

• 1 pint fresh raspberries
• 1 pint fresh blueberries
• 1 pint fresh blackberries
• 1 cup fresh small rosemary sprigs
• 6 limes, cut into wedges
• 3 cups simple syrup *
• 4 cup vodka
• Juice of 8 more large limes
• Ginger ale, chilled
• Garnish
• 16 small fresh rosemary sprigs
• 8 lime slices, cut in half
• Reserved berries

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VEGETABLES & SIDE DISHES

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