The Buckets by Greg Cravens for November 10, 2024

As a child.. I liked my sprouts dipped in a cheese sauce. Made them quite tolerable.

Ranch or Italian dressing before roasting.

Just say they’re boiled shrunken heads & he’ll eat them. Nah, Eddie’s not that kind of kid.

People boil them into mush and then complain that they taste horrible. Roast them instead and they carmelize and sweeten up instead of being smelly mush.

I loved Brussel sprouts as a child. And still do.

Neither of our Moms ever cooked brussels sprouts. As adults, we learned to steam them gently until they were just soft on the outside & still a lil crunchy on the inside. Now, I cut them in half, toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder & garlic powder & put them cut side down on a roasting pan. And I roast them at 400° for 18-25 minutes, taking them out when all the edges are crispy brown. But I have to keep an eye on ’em after 18 minutes, because its a very slim margin between crispy brown edges & burnt edges.

Zucchini bread! The last of the zukes is on the counter, plant them is pots to minimize the harvest.

If you ran sprouts through a food processor, you could probably mix them into certain baked goods and they wouldn’t be noticed.

During the Great Depression tons of people experimented with replacing part or all of an expensive ingredient with something less expensive to see if it didn’t change the flavor or texture. Some of those experiments worked and are still used today.

Maybe imagining they are something else will works.

Someone needs to take this as challenge. I bet if you shredded some sprouts like cabbage, sauteed it with a bit of salt to draw the water out, you could do something dessert oriented with them.