Kid Vs. Produce

A few weeks back, I had stumbled across a recipe for roasted brussels sprouts over at FamilyStyle Food that sounded simple and delish. The problem, of course, is that I’m the only person in my family who really enjoys these little green nuggets of goodness. The Chef will eat them, but even the Sous Chef approaches them with caution. The Boy flat-out thinks they are sent straight from the fiery depths to torture him.

Admittedly, I’ve always just whacked them in half and then given them a quick boil in some salted water until they were tender. Booooooring. Roasting them sounded like a really great idea, when I gave it some brain power. We all enjoy a good caramelized crusty crunch, and ho ho! 2010 was right around the corner! I could play the Produce Challenge card!

On a trip to one of our local markets, we found fresh brussels sprouts on the stalk. Honestly, I’d never given a whole lot of thought to how they grew, but both The Boy and I were fascinated. We brought it home, and after a couple of days of contemplation, we decided to get busy.

First, we had to get them off the stalk.

Then we had a brief combat interlude, featuring brussels sprouts stalk as mace.

Then we trimmed them and gave them a quick wash and spin (vrroom! vrroom!)

Here’s the ingredients we decided to use:

About 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
10 good grinds of black pepper
About 1/2 tablespoon of kosher salt
Eight cloves of garlic, cut into thick slices
And, of course the halved brussels sprouts. I’d guess there was about a pound.
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano

We tossed the brussels sprouts and garlic slices with the extra-virgin olive oil to coat well, and then tossed with the salt and pepper. We dumped the whole lot into a 9×13 glass dish, and sprinked the cheese over the top. This went into the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

When it came out, it was all I could do to not just stand over the pan eating these with my fingers. It would have been worth the burns in my mouth, but I restrained myself.

I’m totally making that photo the new background on my computer.

To increase the odds that The Boy would actually eat something, I paired these luscious sprouts with Pokemon mac and cheese and sliced apples without the skins. (Oh, BELIEVE ME we’ll be making him eat apple skins, and SOON. But I figured one battle at a time.)

We got down to it fairly quickly.

After some hemming and hawing about how he really doesn’t like ‘em much and exactly how many does he have to eat and blah blah blah blah *eyeroll* blah, he looked down and discovered that they were gone. He ate 10 halves, or 5 entire sprouts. AND HE DIDN’T DIE.

SUCCESS!