Maple-Mustard Glazed Roasted Brussel Sprouts

(This post is another response to Cathy Elton's Healthy Thanksgiving Challenge at her blog What Would Cathy Eat? )

I grew up hating brussels sprouts...no, that isn't quite right. I grew up loathing brussels sprouts. They were nasty little mushy baby cabbages that were foisted upon me and my siblings as small children. "They're good for you," my mother insisted, with all the love and good intentions in the world. (Bless her.)

And it was not the usual, or stereotypical, case of "the kid hates veggies!" because at the same time I loved broccoli and corn and spinach. Yes, that nasty lump of stuff that came frozen in a block in the 1970's - remember? That pile of nasty, mushy stuff I loved. Go figure. (Disliked asparagus, though. Still do.) Most likely it had to do with the bitterness of the sprouts, whereas spinach was sweeter by comparison.

The strange thing was, one day they suddenly disappeared from the table. I never could quite figure that one out: they were "good for me" when I was 7, but all of the sudden not so much when I was 8? Not that I ever asked the question aloud; heaven forbid I should jinx myself or my mother had simply forgotten them. Whatever the reason, I was grateful, and I managed to successfully avoid them lo these many years.

Last year they made a comeback (of sorts) in my life: as a member of the volunteer produce team at Fiddleheads Co-op in New London, I found myself staring down shipments of organic specimens just about this time of the year. "I hate brussels sprouts" I declared with the definitive arrogance of the closed-minded. "Try them roasted" other members of the co-op insisted, "you'll fall in love with them. Perhaps with a balsamic vinegar glaze, or...."

As yummy as it sounded, I resisted - until my sweetie forced the issue and brought some home at the co-op. Oh, dear. She steamed the first batch. I generously suggested she eat all of them up, sacrificing spouse that I am. *ahem* Then less generously I reminded her that "I don't eat that stuff."

She brought home a second batch. Bless her. Time to try roasting them.

At this point I had already roasted (and grilled) kale chips and all manner of green things, so when I looked up some recipes online, I found the technique was quite similar: rub with olive oil, salt and pepper, baked in oven, sit back and enjoy the compliments. Cathy Elton has a recipe with a fabulous-sounding maple-mustard glaze, but she roasts them whole and so the cooking time was too long, 40-50 minutes. I need mine done in under 25 for dinner. So I checked out a website Cathy has linked to, Leafy Greens and Me, and found a maple-glazed variation in which the sprouts are cut in halves or quarters to speed the cooking time to about 15 minutes. Perfect...except that the glaze consisted entirely of maple syrup, after having roasted the veggies with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.

So I smashed the two recipes together, added a twist of my own - cayenne pepper - and gave it a go. At dinner that night my sweetie paused just long enough from gobbling them up to tell me how good they were, whilst I was busy on the other side of the table...scarfing down my portion. My self-sacrificing nature disappeared in the irresistable onslaught of deliciousness, and there were no leftovers to be had.

Consider me a convert.

MAPLE-MUSTARD GLAZED ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUT

(The glaze recipe below made enough for two different batches.)

1/2 lb (approx.) fresh organic brussels sprouts, stem ends pared and halved or quartered

(smallest ones left whole)

4 T olive oil

sea salt and black pepper (pref. freshly cracked) to taste

1/4 tea or generous dash of cayenne pepper, or to taste (optional)

1/4 Grade B maple syrup

stoneground mustard (coarsely-ground) to taste (about 1 T)

1 T olive oil

juice of 1/4 freshly squeezed lemon

1/4 medium-sized onion, chopped

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F); lightly oil a baking tray. Trim and half or quarter, depending on size, about 1/2 lb organic brussels sprouts (leave smallest ones whole). Toss in a bowl with olive oil to coat, then sprinkle with the salt pepper and cayenne. If any leaves came off the sprouts during the trimming process, add them to the bowl.

Spread sprouts on tray, place on rack in center of over and bake for 10-15 minutes or until fork-tender and slightly crisp on the outer leaves; turn 2-3 times during cooking process to bake evenly. (Any loose leaves tend to cook quickest and become tasty little miniature chips.)

In the meantime combine remaining ingredients for the glaze, emulsify until thoroughly blended and opaque. When sprouts are tender, remove from oven and turn temperature down to 375 degrees. Pour enough glaze over the sprouts to coat thoroughly when tossed on tray (save the remainder for another use). Return to the oven and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Serves two.

Variation: Try freshly-chopped hot pepper in place of the cayenne.

Healthy Thanksgiving Challenge - Cranberry Sauce

I was living in North Carolina many moons ago when a friend invited me to stay at her place for Thanksgiving weekend. It was a welcome invitation; I had already passed more than one Thanksgiving in NC alone (most of my family was, and still is, in Michigan). There was of course the year I went with three other friends to see an Arnold Schwartznegger comedy, which somehow seems a contradiction in terms, and afterwards we went to Krispy Kreme, watched the donuts pass on the long conveyor belt like so many widgets in an auto factory and realized, as much as we liked one another, that we really wanted to be anywhere other than where we were. (This may account for my loathing of Krispy Kreme products, but that's another story.)

My friend, whom I knew from a lesbian group in Greensboro, (and whose name, I am embarrased to admit, has slipped from my memory), lived in a rented a "cabin" in the woods, a genuinely rustic place with an iron stove, a bed loft, and an art deco front door salvaged from a defunct department store. It was cozy, it was intimate; the space was filled with all manner of women, mostly lesbians, most of whom I also knew from the aforementioned group, on Thanksgiving Day eating, laughing and dancing. It's one of my favorite memories of Thanksgiving.

One of the things I that stood out the most for me was the pot of cranberry sauce simmering away on that cast-iron stove, flavored with orange juice and flecked with orange zest. You could make cranberry sauce? I had loved the jellied version out of a can as a kid in the 1970's (and it seems, looking back, that a great deal of our food came out of a can back then); but it had never occured to me for some reason that one could make cranberry sauce. The real relevation came in the flavor and texture: tart and chunky, it danced on the tongue, and it positively ruined me: I never ate cranberry sauce out of a can again.

Ever since then I make it a point to make at least one batch each year, and I always eagerly await cranberry season. Now I'm surprised more people don't do it; cranberry sauce is ridiculously simple to make. I've already made my first batch of the season, and it seems an appropriate entry in Cathy Elton's Healthy Thanksgiving Challenge . The personal challenge I put to myself when making this was: how little sweetener can I put in this and still be palatable?

Not as much as I thought I'd need, as it turns out. When I first started making cranberry sauce I of course used white sugar, then eventually transitioned to maple syrup and/or honey. But I also remember pouring rather liberal amounts of the stuff into the sauce some years, and I wanted to see if I could do more with less. The result won raves from both my sweetie and my landlord, two very particular eaters; I'm not sure if I'm prouder of the sauce, or the photo I took of it afterwards!

1 lb organic cranberries, rinsed, drained and culled

10 T organic maple syrup

1 T honey (optional)

RW Knudson organic cranberry juice (from concentrate)

2 organic valencia or juicing oranges

In a heavy-bottom pot put the cranberries and add enough cranberry juice to almost but not quite cover. Simmer on low, stirring frequently, being careful to avoid scorching; add the sweeteners and the entire pulp and juice of the two oranges. Add zest from the oranges if desired only if they are organic. Adjust sweetener to taste, simmer until mixture reduces to 1/3-1/2 and has the desired texture (I prefer mine a bit chunky); the sauce should have a rich rose-red color. Cool and refrigerate overnight; the flavors improve and mellow.

Wild Raspberries

The first raspberries of the summer arrived just this week, a mounded handful from Judy, my sweetheart (significant other? "spousal alternative"?) who gathered them and brought them to me quietly on a late afternoon. I was just waking (just barely) from a nap induced by the day's merciless heat; the surprise treat she delivered snapped me instantly back to life.

Wild raspberries grow profusely on our property, and like any good weed become more numerous every year, becoming a thick green boundary all about us, filling up the edges and corners of the land. Generally I am the "guardian" of the raspberries, watching and waiting each year for the countless living rubies and garnets to ripen, filling up our refrigerator and freezer, serving them fresh at breakfasts, turning them into countless jars of jams and jellies. In the ten years I have lived on this property, I have been, in fact, the only person who notices and gathers the raspberries, as well as the mulberries, the black raspberries (not nearly so numerous), the fox grapes, etc., or at least as far as I can tell. (I'm excluding our friends Jake and Laura, who moved off the property some years ago.) So the fact that Judy spotted them before I did this year was a sweet irony.

There are moments (more and more numerous lately) in which I feel as though I have given up on myself, on life, in many ways; or rather, I have learned to expect less and less. At times it feels as though I have squeezed my life into a box so small I can scarcely breathe. When it comes to the wild raspberries, however, I am unapologetic and uncompromising, fueled by a greed that borders on lust.

I have done things for them I would do for no other thing or person on earth; I have spent hours gathering them, sweating profusely under a long-sleeved jacket in an attempt to protect my arms from stinging nettles; I have ditched the jacket in frustration, forgetting that in a couple of hours I'll be coating my arms in lotion in attempt to soothe my badly-scratched and stinging skin. When it comes to picking raspberries my amnesia regarding this issue is astonishing.

Last year we enjoyed them fresh by the handfuls for breakfast or a snack; threw them into smoothies (lesson learned - the seeds are annoying in a smoothie); froze them in ziplock bags (I still have one left from last year); topped vanilla ice cream with raspberries and a sprinkle of homemade granola. Primarily, though, I made them into jellies and jams; if there is any task more time-consuming, labor-intensive (and sweaty), this just might be it. Jelly especially so, which Judy prefers to jam or preserves; since I haven't a foley food mill (yet), my other option is to put them in a thin white linen or cotton pillowcase, and squeeze every bit of juice out of them. A good bit of it seems to end up soaking the cloth, not to mention staining my hands and every other surface in sight. I told myself last year, "No jelly, people can eat the seeds and like it!" But I ended up making it anyway. This is the year I get myself that food mill.

My pride and joy was the batch "raspberry-ginger-lime" jelly I invented on the spot. I thrilled with the results, but no one else seemed to favor it; they all preferred the peach or grape. That's all right, more for me. (I still have one jar left.) I think it has a wonderfully "bright" flavor that balanced all three elements, and went equally well on a piece of toast as on a rice cracker with a bit of cheese or coconut cream cheese as an appetizer.

"Did you write down the recipe?" A friend asked recently.

My answer to that was predictable. "No. I was just winging it." And I did truly "just wing it". All I could offer is to take whatever your favorite raspberry jelly recipe is (mine came from a combination of the sheet inside the pectin box and the instructions on the Pick Your Own website), and add freshly-squeezed or bottled organic lime juice, and organic fresh gingeroot, grately finely. Leave out the threads or "sinews" of the ginger (or strain out later), and be sure to put in any juice from the grating process. Do not add the ginger in chunks because the flavor will not come through as strongly.

Kale Chips...on the Grill? (A Summertime Twist)

I've had several requests from friends for "my" kale chip recipe, which has become a staple at parties since last fall. Full disclosure - they are not "mine"; I found out about them via What Would Cathy Eat? and adapted Cathy's recipe slightly. I eliminated the black pepper and tabasco; I double the amount of olive oil (about 3-4 tablespoons), then sprinkled with ground sea salt and about 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, then baked as directed (adjusting my oven to a lower temp and shorter cooking time, as my oven is hotter than Cathy's, apparently.)

I had been wondering for a while, now that grilling season is in full swing (I've brushed off the old Weber and have been loading it's hungry belly with the surplus of hardwood twigs and sticks on our property), if kale chips could be done on a grill as well as in the oven?

Oh yes, ma'am.

Tear off the leaves (discarding the ribs, as per Cathy's recipe) from 1/2 a bunch of lacinato or toscana kale*. Massage it with about 3-4 T olive oil, 2-3 T tomato sauce, 1-2 tea. red wine vinegar, 2 tea. soy sauce, and a dash of cayenne. Toss the leaves until thoroughly coated. Marinate at room temperature for about 1-1/2 hours. Heated up the grill (I only burn hardwoods, no coal or gas, so please adjust for your own grill); when the coals are "medium hot", grey on the outside but burning red inside, put a well-oiled tray for vegetables and small foods atop the grill. Place each leaf atop the tray, watching each one carefully and turning once or twice. Make sure the leaves are flat and not folded or twisted up. A leaf is ready when it's edges begin to curl upward and it is stiff, not limp when you touch it with your tongs; plus it will slide easily across the tray. If it seems stiff at one end but still limp elsewhere, turn or rotate and leave on a few more seconds. When ready, gently drop each one on a plate or in bowl; they will continue to crisp as they cool.

It probably goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that this is not an operation you can walk away from.

Do make sure to set some aside for yourself, because these will disappear FAST, just as their oven-baked siblings do. Hungry friends, family (and significant others) will no doubt take advantage of the fact that your attention is focused on the grill. (There is no such thing as unselfishness when it comes to something this addictive.)

* I haven't tried this yet with the gorgeous toscana kale from Hunts Brook Farm (Quaker Hill, CT) I saw yesterday at New London's Fiddleheads Food Co-op, but I'm sure it would be superb. HBF's kale resembles the lacinato but is lovelier and lusher than the lacinato the co-op has been carrying.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun...

There is, I have discovered, one (and probably only one) good thing about suffering 100 degree heat plus 100% humidity. (That's in the shade and a mile from the beach, mind you!)

All the fruit on my kitchen counter ripened in a single day. Lusciously, gorgeously - the grocery store produce that can often be an iffy proposition no matter how carefully I select it (I thump, I sniff, I gently press, etc) was suddenly a surfeit of perfect ripeness. Peaches, mangos, nectarines, pineapple. More than I know what to do with at one time - but luckily, I have very little difficulty coming up with ideas.

Even if this heat renders my brain essentially useless for any and all other functions.

Fig O' My Heart

"Is that a fruit?" the cashier at the check-out asked me, observing the four figs I've placed on the conveyor belt. "I've never tried it. I think you're the first customer I've seen buying it!"

"Ever tried a Fig Newton?" I asked.

"No."

Of course I'm in no position to judge anyone else's food experiences as I myself was buying a white chayote, which I had never tried and had no idea what I was going to do with. I bought it out of curiosity, and the fact that it's beautiful, sculptural, heart-shaped form looked like something My Sweetie* would include in one of her still-life paintings. (I did ask the cashier about preparing chayote; "my mother cooks with it sometimes" she said, with a shrug.)

But regarding figs, I'm willing to bet that a good many Americans have never encountered one outside of the aforementioned Newton. Which made me wonder: why it is that some fruits resist "molestation" by some corporate entity or another, but not figs? The fig seems a most unlikely candidate for being rendered unrecognizable in that way. It's naturally sweet, juicy but not excessively messy, compact and portable. The seeds are tiny enough to be unobjectionable, and it doesn't require peeling or coring. It's a neat little package ready to go.

How much so I prove to myself when I start putting my groceries in the car. One of the figs had gotten slightly squished in my basket; I nipped off the stem end with my fingernails and popped the rest into my mouth whole. (You can't do that with a pear.) The idea of taking these little gems, mashing it, adding white sugar and other ingredients, then wrapping it in a thick blanket of bland dough not only seems superfluous, it's absurd.

Perhaps figs just need a better marketing agent. (Is the person who used to represent raisins still available?)

My favorite way to have figs, however, is to warm them: baked or lightly broiled, drizzled with maple syrup or honey (or not), perhaps sprinkled with coriander (or not.) The other day I remembered I had a bit of goat cheese at home and, wondering "what if?" enjoyed a late-morning treat. Baked, in this instance; the juice from the figs melded with the honey and became a beautiful deep rose-colored sauce at the bottom of the baking dish. The goat cheese was the spreadable stuff, hardly first rate (and certainly not from France. New Jersey, perhaps?) but just "goaty" enough to provide a contrast to the figs when dabbed after letting the figs cool a little. Whole wheat toast triangles, from good, crusty, "peasant" bread, perhaps sourdough, would have been a perfect accompaniment, providing crunchy contrast to the softness of the cheese and fruit. Unfortunately, I didn't have any bread on hand, a rare occasion in our kitchen.

What will I do differently next time? My Sweetie* said that she might prefer maple syrup on them rather than honey, so I'll try that instead. What else? I can imagine increasing the salty/savory quotient and really make the sweetness sing. Wrap the figs and goat cheese in paper-thin slices of prosciutto, perhaps? Perhaps. Or sprinkle with a bit of finely-ground sea salt, which I'm more likely to have on hand? Why not?

Small pleasures, indeed.

(And yes, I realize I'm made a hypocrite of myself in claiming that figs are naturally sweet, and then topping them with a sweetner; but since I'm already in this deep I might as dive in all the way and confess that if I'd had agave syrup, I probably would have used that instead due to its viscosity but also it's relatively "neutral" flavor.)

*Not her real name. Of course.