Cruciferous Veg Night

The nights have turned decidedly colder lately. In fact, we have lows in the 30's forecast all this upcoming week.

With the colder temperatures, SM starts thinking about slow cooked, oven baked goodness to fill his belly at meal times.

"How about a pot roast?" SM suggests as we're roaming around Sam's Club yesterday.

"Sure" I say, pointing at the beef section. "Go pick one out. Nicely marbled would be best." 

At Sam's they sell 2 chuck roasts together. One for the pot, one for the freezer.

"With potatoes and carrots?" SM asks hopefully.

"No potatoes!" I wave my finger at him in a uh-uh motion.

"Then what can we cook with it?"

"Well...Carrots and onions. I've got green peppers from the garden." I say.

""How about some whole mushrooms?"

"Go get em." I reply.

So I'm standing there staring at a big bag of Brussel sprouts. Considering.

Now I like all sorts of veg but Brussel sprouts  have always tasted bitter to me which I never really understood cause they look like cute, little mini cabbages and cooked cabbage is so nice and sweet. 

As an adult, I've never cooked brussel sprouts.   But I read on ya'lls blogs how yummy you think they are.

All these thoughts are popping through my head when I hear...

"Excuse me..."

I turn around and here's this trim, middle aged lady sideling up to me. She leans towards me, eyes on the bag of sprouts and says...

"Do you know how to cook these?"

"Well no. I never have. But I've read that if you roast them in olive oil, garlic and salt they get sweet."

"I just love them." She responds.

Eureka! I think.

"Well, how do you cook them?" I ask eagerly, thinking I'll just follow her recipe.

She looks at me full in the face, smiles and says. "Green Giant."

We both laugh.

She reaches past me and grabs a bag. "It's worth a shot." She says shrugging.

"Google it." I suggest. "Somebody out there knows the secret to cooking these things." And grab a bag myself.

I walk over and toss the bag into the cart. 

SM picks it up and looks at it suspiciously.

"Brussel sprouts? You're feeding me deciduous vegetables?" He asks, his eyebrows up. "Don't you remember what happened to Sheldon? (see above clip)

"Cruciferous." I correct, laughing. "And yeah, I remember what happens to Sheldon. Just don't eat a voluminous amount or you'll be mellifluously farting all night long."

I couldn't resist tossing in our favorite BIG words that we'd learned from NPR this summer.

Hey...Some days, humor is where you find it.

@;)