Such a quick meal but really delicious. 

Funny story. I was out running an errand and had a hankering for an In-N-Out burger. Glanced at my phone to see exactly where it was (I was out in the desert and knew I’d seen one in La Quinta). Thought I knew where . . . nope . . wasn’t where I thought it was. Should have stopped and done a search on my phone or the car GPS, but didn’t. Decided to just go back home and find something to make. I had cabbage. I had onion. I had one of those u-ring-shaped packages of smoked sausage. There it was. Lunch. But I added a bunch of other stuff too.

First I sauteed some onion and celery in a bit of olive oil, then added garlic powder, some herbs, then a few cups of chopped up cabbage. Poured in about 1/2 cup of white wine that was languishing in the refrigerator. Use vermouth if you don’t have any regular drinking wine. Dissolved some Dijon in the wine, stirred, added Italian seasoning, the smoked sausage cut up in diagonal coins, then at the last, added a bit of butter.

What I realized was how EASY this meal was to make. It couldn’t have taken me more than 20 minutes to throw it together. I could have added some carrots, which I had, or broccoli, but I wanted the typical German style with the sausage, cabbage and onions. The butter was the icing on the cake, so to speak. I could taste it, which gave the dish a lovely silkiness. You could probably use a bit less butter if you want to. This makes enough for two. I had the second portion the next day for lunch and enjoyed it every bit as much as I did the first time. If I’d wanted to be decadent I’d have served it with a side of creamy mashed potatoes. I had this dish in Germany a couple of times, and it was outstanding. That would add a lot of calories, but the flavors are really good.

What’s GOOD: loved the combo of flavors – the sausage, the slight crunch of the cabbage. The butter added a smooth finish. The herbs were super, and the wine added some nice flavor too. I’m absolutely buying another ring of sausage to have on hand for another one of these skillet dinners.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t have all the ingredients on hand.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Lovely roasted veggies enhanced with lemon juice in a vinaigrette.

Having shopped that morning and with numerous vegetables to choose from, I decided a sheetpan of roasted veggies sounded good for dinner. My complete dinner. But adding some kind of dressing would be even better, so I kind of made up a dressing with EVOO, a tad of red wine vinegar and fresh lemon juice (my Meyer lemon tree is loaded, absolutely loaded with them), Dijon, a tiny bit of sugar, salt and pepper and some minced shallot.

After cutting up the veggies (one sweet potato, chunked large, 1 large sweet onion cut in wedges, about 12 Brussels sprouts, halved, one baby bok choy, cut into wedge thirds), I piled them onto a sheet pan lined with parchment. EVOO was drizzled over it and I used my hands to make sure every surface had been kissed by the oil. Then I added some salt and freshly ground black pepper, and it was ready. Into a 400°F oven it went for 35 minutes. If I’d wanted more caramelization I wouldn’t have used the parchment, but they were just done in that time frame (and the sheetpan was mostly clean). Meanwhile, I’d mixed up the vinaigrette, tasted it, and added a bit more oil. Once the veggies came out of the oven I put them onto my plate and drizzled (using a teaspoon) some of it over each piece of vegetable. That way, I hoped, I’d use less of the dressing (therefore fewer calories). So delicious. As I write this, I made the veggies last night, and at lunchtime today I couldn’t wait to have more of them. I reheated them in the microwave for a quick meal.

The recipe below makes more than you’ll need of the dressing – use what’s left on a green salad. Therefore, the calorie count in the actual recipe is way off. This is a mix-and-match kind of dish – don’t like sweet potatoes? Add white potatoes. Don’t like Brussels, add red, yellow and green bell peppers, cauliflower or eggplant. Don’t have sweet onion? No problem. Regular onions should work just fine. Add carrots to this – they’d be great – they become very sweet when roasted. I was trying to stick with low carb. Sweet potatoes are a resistant starch, so they don’t get absorbed by the body like most starches/carbohydrate. I have some portobello mushrooms and if I make this again in the next few days, I’ll add those, although they’d need the dark gills cleaned out  (otherwise the resulting dark fluid would spread over the other veggies – wouldn’t look pretty). I’m not a fan of cooked celery, but it probably would work here too. Regular cabbage would work too if cut into smaller wedges.

What’s GOOD: oh gosh, every veggie was wonderful. The vinaigrette just “made” it – it was the lemon juice that was the key to that. If you cut the veggies in somewhat even thickness they’ll all be done at the same time. Using parchment made for easy clean-up. The leftover vinaigrette I’ll use on a salad in the next few days. Absolutely wonderful dinner. If you wanted to serve it with a side of protein – a grilled chicken breast, or some rotisserie chicken, easy. A grilled pork chop maybe, or even a piece of fish. All good with the vegetables.

What’s NOT: only that you need to have the right combo of vegetables. Use what you have. No complaints here!

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Green beans – oh so delicious – can be a veg or a salad.

Over Christmas there was quite a bit of too-ing and fro-ing from one family location to another. Going south, we (my cousin Gary from NorCal was here) met on the 23rd for a big family dinner and gift exchange and one of the family’s homes in Corona del Mar. I think there were about 25 people there, with 22 of them being part of my daughter-in-law’s extended family. I took a gluten-free dessert and something else . . . at this moment I can’t recall what I made. I think it was a salad of some kind. Oh well, it will come to me . . . Then on the 24th my cousin Gary and I drove north to La Canada (where my son Powell and his family live). We had a lovely dinner that night, paella and all the extras from a local Spanish restaurant. We had desserts leftover from the 23rd, and we had lovely Sangria to enjoy too.

Because their house was full-up with guests, Gary and I were treated to an overnight at The California Club. My son and his wife have joined it and they have 30+ rooms available. It’s in downtown Los Angeles. It’s like a private country club but without a golf course. In the morning we enjoyed coffee (Gary had other things; me just the coffee) in the bar at the Club. We were sorry they had to provide food for guests on Christmas morning, but we weren’t the only people staying there, and the waiter was ever-so nice. Then we returned to the house for an official breakfast.

Karen made some GF eggs in pastry cups (recipe to come soon). They were just delicious and I was amazed at the flakiness of the pastry. I did a huge charcuterie board (I made Gary help me with the creating of it) which everyone munched on during the afternoon. For dinner Powell grill-rotisserie-d a double boneless leg of lamb stuffed with all kinds of herbs, and everyone else helped out with other dishes to round out the dinner. It was a fabulous meal – a formal dining room setting with the family china. I think the lamb was the most tender leg of lamb I’ve ever eaten – it was as tender as prime rib or a tenderloin.

So, this green bean dish . . . it comes from Milk Street, and you can tell, it’s Russian. First you make the Adjika (I’m assuming it means “sauce”). It’s comprised of a LOT of fresh mint (thank goodness I have it growing in abundance in my yard), Jalapeno chiles, garlic, salt, a bit of oil and some ground coriander. The green beans were cooked just past the crunchy stage, then they’re tossed with the sauce, some yogurt, lemon zest and juice and garnished with more fresh mint and some toasted walnuts. I made the mint sauce (the Adjika) at home so it was easy to mix in when composing the dish.

What’s GOOD: I thought these were stupendous. I’d have loved to have had leftovers the next day, but I left them for Karen and family to enjoy. Definitely a keeper and one I want to make again. Although I have mint growing, I’ll need to wait a few weeks for the patch to recover from harvesting so much of it for this dish! We’re having very cold temps at night, and mint doesn’t much like that – often it dies off in the winter. I was just lucky there was plenty when I needed it. We have several family members who can’t eat nuts, so the picture doesn’t show them – I had them nearby for people to sprinkle on top as they wanted. Make the sauce earlier in the day, and make the yogurt sauce ahead also. The green beans could be made ahead too, so all you’d have to do is toss everything. The dish is very low in calorie. I made a double batch to feed all of us.

What’s NOT: There are a few steps to making this – none is difficult, just a bit time consuming.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (clink link to open recipe)

Tweet

Is this ever delicious! So worth making. Long simmered pork shoulder chunks in a brothy sauce, ladled over a fresh batch of oven-baked polenta, and topped off with gremolata (the green stuff in the center).

So there’s a cute story about this – – we had this on New Years’ Eve, for dinner. My son-in-law, John, (Sara’s husband) was in l-o-v-e with it. He had seconds. Then he ate what was left on their son’s plate. He said: “Oh, where has this been for the last 56 years?” Obviously, he’s 56 now. Does that give you a clue as to how good this is?

A couple of weeks ago my friend Cherrie and my daughter Sara and I met in La Jolla (a seaside village north of San Diego) to attend a cooking class. I don’t believe I’ve been to a cooking class since we attended this same kind of class last December. Phillis Carey and Diane Phillips (both long-time cooking instructors and cookbook authors) taught the class, aimed at Christmas feasts. Diane is either Italian herself, or her husband is (they own a home in Spoleto, Italy and divide their time between San Diego and Tuscany). Phillis doesn’t teach cooking classes anymore (she’s retired except for taking some group cruise ship tours in various parts of the world with cooking and food as the emphasis). I miss Phillis’s classes.

But anyway, Phillis and Diane teach the equivalent of a full cooking class each at this particular event – a full course meal, demonstration and then everyone gets to sample the food. Diane did 6 dishes, Phillis did 5, I believe. There were several stars in the mix, and this was one of them. Sara and I decided we’d like to prepare this over New Years’ weekend sometime. We’re going to be in the desert with family visiting that weekend and it’ll make a great company meal. The flavor was just over the top delicious. A pork shoulder is used, cut up into small chunks (see photo below) and it’s served over a very easy baked polenta. Diane explained that some while back she just didn’t want to buy veal shanks anymore (they’re so very expensive, and it’s so inhumane to slaughter a very young steer), so she tried pork shoulder. Here’s the photo of it simmering.

Here on my blog I already have a recipe for osso bucco using pork shanks. But this one is very different using the pork shoulder. What’s there not to like about all the flavor from the fat in that pork shoulder? You do get to skim some of that fat off during the cooking process. The pork is browned then all the aromatics are added (onion, carrot, celery, sage, wine, broth, tomatoes). The meat is simmered for about 2 hours, or until the pork is super-tender. Diane recommends making it the day before, refrigerating it (that’s when you can remove the fat that rises to the top), then it’s merely a matter of reheating it. Serve with Gremolata – to me it “makes” the dish. It’s a mixture of freshly chopped Italian parsley, orange and lemon zest and fresh garlic (finely minced). See photo below.

The polenta was super-easy – you combine water, polenta style cornmeal, salt and pepper in a baking dish. You leave it uncovered, transfer to a 375°F oven and bake for an hour. Then you stir in Parm and butter. You want to serve the meal immediately when the polenta comes out of the oven while it’s creamy and hot, though you can add more hot broth or water to it to loosen it if it has to sit a few minutes.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was yummy. So tender, the meat, delicious juices running all over the plate, and the creamy polenta that is a match made in heaven. Serve it with gremolata (garlic, lemon zest, orange zest and Italian parsley). So pretty and it truly adds a lot of extra flavor.

What’s NOT: only that you need to start this several hours ahead (or ideally the day before).

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Tummy-warming soup with a Mexican bent – made with poblano chiles, canned green chiles and a bunch of vegetables. Plus chicken, of course.

First, a little update about me. My jury duty is finally over with – it lasted four weeks. Thank goodness I’m done with it. I wasn’t ever called to be a deliberating juror (I was an alternate), but when the jurors did meet they convicted the defendant on all five counts, including an enhancement charge that she had intended to cause bodily harm. I wrote a letter to the prosecutor (thanking her), one to the police detective who was assigned to the case (thanking him for his 14 months of working on the case), another to the police chief (telling him how much I admired the detective for his work, but also for his compassion to the victim), and lastly I mailed a Halloween card to the victim herself telling her how brave she was to testify (age 11). The defendant will be put away for a long time.

Now let’s talk about soup. When the weather begins to turn cooler I’m all in for making soups. This one started out as a slow cooker soup, but since I no longer have a large slow cooker (only the instant pot one – and it would have been too small for this batch) I changed the recipe all around, added more vegetables into it and made it on the stovetop. If you have leftover chicken (or in my case it was some rotisserie chicken) this is a perfect soup to use it up.

This is a quick and easy soup if you have all the ingredients. The original recipe called for rice (you can add it if you’d like), but I added some sweet potato and a bit of butternut squash. Actually, for the record, I bought a box of fresh, chopped up veggies at Trader Joe’s, a kind of fall medley, so I’m estimating how much sweet potato and squash it added. Soups like this aren’t exact – add more of anything that suits you and your family.

There are bunches of recipes on the ‘net lately, all made in a crockpot, using a brick of cream cheese. That adds a lot of luscious creaminess to the soup as it melts slowly. I almost always have an 8-ounce brick of cream cheese in my refrigerator. You don’t have to decorate the servings with grated cheese or cilantro, but those two things add a nice touch to the soup. Finishes it off.

What’s GOOD: loved this soup. It makes a big batch, so I have ample to freeze in Ziploc quart bags. Loved the creaminess of it, and the various vegetables added, the sweet potato and butternut squash. The various chiles add a lovely umami flavor to the soup, I think. Altogether delicious.

What’s NOT: nothing really. I suppose you could adapt this to an instant pot (make half the recipe) and then add the cream cheese at the end and let it simmer (not pressure cook) to blend slowly into the soup itself. Made on the stovetop, with all the chopping, etc. it probably takes an hour to make the soup.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

There are SO many recipes out there in the ‘verse for meatloaf. How do you choose?

My friend Dianne and I hosted a PEO fundraising event awhile back and did a menu from Erin French’s cookbook, The Lost Kitchen. I already posted the cocktail we made, the Cider & Rosemary Prosecco Cocktail, and in the photo for the cocktail was a cute little board with the whole menu on it. Here’s the next set of recipes.

We’re talkin’ meatloaf here. So, can I say this meatloaf is all that different from others? Well, yes and no. What’s different: quite a lot of carrots, a lot of shallots, pecorino cheese (that’s certainly different!) and more than a usual amount of bread cubes. Listening to podcasts, or reading articles about meatloaf, more and more chefs reveal that they use a lot of bread in their meatloaf – because it makes it tender. I don’t think my mother used any bread or breadcrumbs in her meatloaf. I might have used a little bit in my old tried and true meatloaf. Hence my old standby is kind of a firm, very firm chunk of meat. I definitely like this better, despite not really wishing I have to add carbs to make it tender. But hey, if it tastes better, then yes, I guess I’ll have to incorporate this into recipes from now on.

Erin suggested a variety of sides to choose from (including just mashed potatoes) but I thought the parsnips would be a different side not many people would make themselves. Many of our guests had NEVER had parsnips before – some didn’t even know what they looked like. They’re shaped like big carrots, but they’re a kind of off-white color. They’re quite hard to cut, but become tender when they cook. They’re naturally sweet – not as sweet as sweet potatoes, but still they have a lot of natural sugar in them. Trader Joe’s carries them now and then – I guess when they’re in season. Particularly around the holidays.

The glaze on the meatloaf is a ketchup based one (with brown sugar and Dijon added). I love the topping – wanted some of it with every bite. And I wanted a bit of parsnips with every bite too. Make plenty – you’ll be surprised how well it goes with meatloaf.

All of our guests raved about both dishes and wanted the recipes. We got to talking about meatloaf and many at our table had their own little twists that became family favorites. It was decided that next year Dianne and I are going to do a meatloaf cook-off. She’s going to make two types and I’m going to make two types (all four of them different) and we’ll have sides and a dessert. Maybe we’ll include Ina Garten’s turkey meatloaf in the mix too — not sure. It’s excellent, but I think we’d be comparing apples and oranges to choose between and try to compare a beef/pork meatloaf with a turkey one.

Really, I loved Erin’s Dad’s meatloaf. It WAS very tender, and tasty from the added carrots, shallots and Pecorino  – and the bread! The recipe below makes two big loaf pans of it – you could easily halve it, though. I’m sure portions would freeze easily, however! And the parsnips were a big hit. I have loved parsnips ever since I first tried them in England many years ago. They’re a standard side dish in British cuisine. You don’t have to do much to them to make them delicious – this with butter and heavy cream. Yummy.

What’s GOOD: Loved the meatloaf and the parsnips. The additions in the meatloaf make for a very tender loaf – more tender than usual. And the parsnips are such a lovely sweet surprise. And they go so well with meatloaf. Both recipes are keepers.

What’s NOT: the meatloaf does take a bit of prep (you could use a food processor to hasten the process) but so worth it. Parsnips are a cinch.

MEATLOAF: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

PARSNIPS: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

. . .

Tweet

Talk about flavorful? You need to make this – these two recipes.

It’s been a couple of months since I made this – I’ve had lots of recipes to write up for the blog – I think this was over Easter weekend. My friend Linda and I shared cooking responsibilities. I made this one of the evenings. Two fabulous recipes (below). You definitely need to make them both – not necessarily together, but the chicken was great with the cheesy cauliflower, and the zinfandel gravy was tasty to have with the cauliflower.

The chicken recipe was in Bon Appetit in November of 2001. A long time ago, and I just got around to making it. Nothing about it is difficult. You do need bacon (adds so much wonderful flavor), shallots and good mushrooms. The recipe called for boiling onions – I tried to find them (frozen) at Trader Joe’s, but they told me they only carry them around the holidays. So I used regular yellow onions instead, cut into some wedges and some chopped. I took along a good bottle of Zinfandel, and Linda and I enjoyed drinking it – the part I didn’t use in the chicken. The recipe was developed by Chef Jeff Mall, from a restaurant in Healdsburg, CA, called Zin. No longer in business, so the internet says. I’m glad I have this recipe – it’s a good one to serve to guests, and you could make a large or small quantity. I prefer cooking chicken thighs over breasts (too easy to overcook breasts) and I think thighs have more flavor.

The thighs are dunked in flour, salted and peppered, then browned in the bacon grease. Don’t over-brown them as you’ll cook them through right there in the pan. Since I always use thick cut, meaty bacon,  there wasn’t a lot of grease anyway. The recipe suggests adding a dash of olive oil to the pan also, which I did. Once browned, the thighs are removed while you make the sauce (shallots, garlic, onions, mushrooms and Herbes de Provence, if you have it –  if not, use thyme). The original recipe called for marjoram –  I didn’t have it but did have the Provence herb mixture on hand. Chicken stock is added plus the Zinfandel, and you scrape up all that browned goodness from the bottom of the pan. The original dish was baked, but I cooked it on the stovetop. Boneless, skinless thighs don’t take that long to cook! The chicken and veggies are removed, then you make a butter roux and thicken the sauce. Add the chicken and veggies back in to re-warm. Just warm everything through.

Meanwhile, you will have made the cauliflower. I started with a recipe from Kalyn’s Kitchen – she calls it “the best pureed cauliflower.” I agree! Once the cauliflower has steam-cooked for about 20 minutes, you drain it well. In fact, you drain it for about 5 minutes so you know there isn’t much water left (this way the mashed version won’t be too thin/watery). The cauliflower goes into the food processor along with some grated Parmesan (the good stuff, not the canned variety), salt, pepper, a little bit of cream, and Kalyn used 1 1/2 T of soft goat cheese. What I had on hand was Boursin garlic herb cheese – that’s what I used – about 1/4 cup (more than in the original recipe). Taste it for seasonings. You might need to reheat the mashed cauliflower just before serving – over low heat as it could burn easily. My friend Linda was quite enamored with the cauliflower – she’d never had any that was so flavorful. Yup! Really good. When you serve it, lap some of the sauce on the cauliflower – not a lot.

What’s GOOD: both of these recipes are delicious. Worthy of a company meal. It does require several steps to making it, but neither is overwhelming. Count on about 1 1/2 hours total including baking time for the chicken. The chicken is extra-tasty. Also a bit rich from the bacon and the buttery sauce. Love-loved the sauce! If you have leftover sauce be sure to use it in soup (I made a chicken and vegetable soup the following week). The cauliflower recipe is a real keeper. Well, both of these are. Loved the cauliflower with the cheesy components in it. Not overwhelmingly cheesy – just GOOD cheesy. Altogether fabulous two recipes.

What’s NOT: only that the chicken does take some time, start to finish. Cauliflower is easy, though.

Coq au Zin printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Cheesy Mashed Cauliflower printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

—–

Tweet

A delicious, savory side dish – full of flavor, but very healthy. Potatoes on the bottom, then bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, basil and oregano.

A recipe from my friend Linda T, and she got it from Cucina Rustica, a cookbook from 1990, by Evan Kleiman. The cookbook is all about rustic (simple) Italian fare. Linda served this with the delicious double glazed salmon dish when we spent the weekend doing a lot of fun cooking. Serve this with a meal that has a stellar main dish – a roast, a roasted chicken perhaps, or in our case, with salmon. There’s no real liquid poured in or over this dish – just the juices from the sliced tomatoes.

Start with the potatoes (use a boiling type) and they’re sliced and layered in an olive-oil greased casserole dish. (See unbaked dish in photo at right.) Then add the sliced peppers, then a layer of tomatoes. It’s seasoned with salt, pepper, basil, garlic and oregano. Then layer again. Lastly you drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top and bake for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes are tender (thicker = longer baking time). You can add a tiny bit of water to the dish if you think it’s too dry – this would be part way through the baking process.

Allow it to cool a few minutes as it would be way too hot to eat immediately.

What’s GOOD: a simple dish, layered, baked in a hot oven, a lovely melding of Italian flavors with the peppers and tomatoes. Note: there’s no cheese in this! And do notice the low calorie count – as I said, very healthy. (Thanks for the recipe, Linda.)

What’s NOT: nothing at all – a straight forward dish. Has to be made just before baking, however, as the potatoes would darken.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Would you believe I forgot to add the cotija cheese?

A post from Carolyn. The best laid plans – the cotija cheese was right there beside the bowl, but did I remember to add it? Nope. Well, the salad was fabulous without it, but when you make it, you should add the cheese. This recipe I adapted just a smidgen from smitten kitchen. What intrigued me was the combination of ingredients – the harissa (which I love), the caraway and cumin too. If you  have a food processor, do use it for grating the carrots. Although I have a box grater, it’s new and those blades are ever-so sharp. My carrots were small, and was afraid the carrot would wobble and next thing I’d grate off part of my fingers. So I used a mini-food processor and chopped/chunked them instead. Not the best carrot shape, but it made no difference to the flavor or texture.

This salad is so easy to make – the dressing has a bunch of ingredients, but it takes little time to gather them up (garlic, caraway, cumin, paprika, harissa, sugar, lemon juice and herbs). The dressing is cooked slightly (to take the edge off the raw garlic and enhance the caraway and cumin). Then there’s olive oil too, and lastly the cheese. Smitten’s recipe calls for feta, but I had cotija (A Mexican cheese that’s very similar to feta, salty too) and it should have made it INTO the salad if I’d remembered! Once you’ve combined the carrots and the dressing, taste it for seasonings (salt? more oil? more lemon juice?), then sprinkle with cheese, fresh mint and parsley, finely chopped.

What’s GOOD: the lemon juice and seeds (caraway and cumin) add a lovely flavor. Then there’s the harissa, of course, which has a real whammy of flavor. Put them altogether and you’ve got a great tasting salad. A keeper.

What’s NOT: only that grating the carrots takes time and does make a bit of a mess. Worth the effort, though.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Another winner of a recipe for roasted veggies.

A post from Carolyn. Can you remember back (not all that many years ago) when we didn’t even know about the succulent sweetness of roasting vegetables on a large sheetpan? I sure do. I think the phenomena happened about 10 years ago, then we went into full swing with sheetpan dinners. I sure do love those. And I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen, whence this recipe originated. Brussels sprouts are a favorite of mine, and I was happy to try a new version of them. As it happened I’d been out to lunch that day, and wanted something really healthy for dinner and not too filling. This was my dinner – I ate about half of that plate full.

This would make a great vegetable dish for company. It’s not hard – you could prepare everything ahead of time, have the vinaigrette ready except for the chopped apple, and roast the veggies just before dinner is ready. What’s different about this recipe is the oven temperature. It’s 500°F. Wow, is that ever hot. Have good heavy hot pads at the ready when you take it out of the oven. Just a warning! It intrigued me – that high oven temperature – because usually we roast veggies at about 425 or 450. In this case, the Brussels sprouts came out perfectly tender and still vibrantly green. The leaves that came loose (you know, the leaves that kind of break off when you halve the Brussels sprouts?) burned to a crisp (but they were edible – I just took them off when I plated it). I loved the dark caramelization of the sprouts. Then the apple cherry (or in my case I had dried cranberries open and decided to use them instead) vinaigrette is kind of genius! Pile the veggies on a platter and pour the apple vinaigrette over the top and you’re done.

The maple syrup in the vinaigrette adds a lovely sweetness. I didn’t have a tart apple, so used an Envy. Probably made the dish a bit sweeter than intended. I didn’t have fresh tarragon, either, so I used dried. Am sure the dish would be enhanced with fresh tarragon.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was delicious. I will definitely make this again. Loved the texture of the Brussels sprouts (super tender) and the flavor differences between the apple and the little amount of vinaigrette, and then the dried fruit too. Altogether delicious.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. It’s a keeper. There’s very little actual vinaigrette (meaning oil/vinegar) so try to sprinkle the apple fruit vinaigrette all over the top to cover as much of the Brussels sprouts as possible. Maybe next time I’ll double-up on the oil, vinegar and maple syrup.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet