Brussels Sprout Roasted Sweet

Gone are the days of boiling these little healthy veggies to a soggy tasteless glop of green. This method will tickle your taste buds. Heck, it might even get a kid or two to like them

Brussels sprouts are considered a very healthy vegetable. These little vitamin and mineral nuggets will provide your body with just what it needs to remain healthy. Brussels Sprout is also in the family of cruciferous vegetables and those help prevent cancer.

Nobody needs to tell us about the health benefits of our vegetables. We all know about needing our vitamins, our minerals, and our fiber. All of these are kept in the vegetable family. But instead of learning to eat tasteless formless boiled to death vegetables; let’s learn the art of making them yummy.

Brussels Sprout are from the brassica family and that includes broccoli. They have indole-3-carbinol and sulforaphane in them. Indole-3-carbonole is said to help DNA repair your body on the cellular level. Both indole-3-carbinol and sulforaphane are said to block the growth of cancer cells. Of course, there are goodly amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A, folic acid, and fiber in Brussels sprouts. The high fiber makes them very good in preventing colon cancer.

Did you know that a full cup of Brussels sprouts is only 45 calories?

Here is how to buy them and how to make them tasty.These Brussels sprouts were purchased fresh. As you can see Brussels Sprout grow on stalks and look much like mini-cabbages. They are often harvested after the first frost to increase their flavor and texture.

When shopping for Brussels sprouts look for bright green Brussels sprout, with no yellow leaves, and no black spots. The individual Brussels Sprout should be firm and compact.

They require snapping off the stem, washing, and then halving. The reason to halve them is to decrease the cooking time. If you cook them too long the outside will burn before the interior is fully cooked. The exterior when properly browned is almost sweet.

You can also sprinkle bleu cheese crumbles over this dish right before serving. This makes a nice presentation at a dinner or on a buffet.

Other ideas that work well with this baked Brussels sprouts dish include: bacon crumbles, pancetta, roasted garlic, lemon zest, onion crisps, and pomegranate seeds.

Frankly, everything tastes better with bacon. Do experiment with the lemon zest or the pomegranate seeds as they add a nice fresh taste to this otherwise heavier vegetable.

A light sprinkling with cayenne pepper adds a pep and zest too.

These are wonderful the next day tossed in with a hearty salad, a vegetable soup. or a bean soup. My husband loves them cold right from the fridge!

This is a quintessential English dish. Brussels sprouts, although, hailing from Brussels the country, they grow extremely well in Great Britain. In fact there is even a Lady Crawley Brussels sprout recipe from Downton Abbey. This recipe boils the Brussels sprout and then adds fresh English cream as well as lemon and cayenne pepper.

So, you can be both healthy and Downton Abbey upper crust dining with the humble little but nutritious packed Brussels sprout.