Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Apples & Bacon

I'm auditioning brussels sprouts for a potential role in my Thanksgiving contribution this year. Brussels sprouts are a relatively uncharted territory for me as I was one of those haters for most of my life. I began my conversion a couple of years ago when I came across a very simple recipe in one of Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbooks. The photograph was delicious and I'd been trying to broaden my veggie horizons by focusing specifically on vegetables that I'd thought I hated (eggplant and squash rounded out the top 3 vegetables I've managed to avoid all my life). The brussels sprouts were pretty darned good. I felt accomplished, adventurous, and virtuous. Then I moved on.

In preparation for the upcoming holidays, I was asked if I'd be up to bringing a home made holiday dish to a staff meeting at the market and talk about how to shop for it and how to prepare it, providing printed copies of the recipe. This is an example of how we live Bi-Rite's mission statement: Creating Community Through Food.

The first thing that came to mind were brussels sprouts. I don't know why, because I've never prepared them since that first time but it seemed like the perfect occasion to revisit.

So, as usual, I embarked on a recipe Google-thon and landed on two recipes that morphed into this:

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Apples & Bacon
adapted from Michael Symon at cookingchanneltv.com
and backtoherroots.com

1 ½ pounds brussels sprouts-trimmed and halved*

1  large tart apple, such as a Granny Smith or Pippin-cut the same size as the brussels sprouts

8 ounces slab bacon-cut into ¼ “ lardons (cubes)

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons maple syrup

Pre heat the oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, toss the brussels sprouts and apples in 2 tablespoons of olive oil using your fingers to get all of the pieces coated. Transfer onto however many sheet pans you'll need so you can spread the pieces out so they are in one layer and not touching each other. You may need to roast in batches to achieve this. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

When roasting vegetables it’s important not to crowd the pan or else everything will just steam and not brown.

Roast for 20 minutes** or until the vegetables start to blacken. Halfway through the roasting time, remove the pans, toss the vegetables around and switch places on the racks if you have more than one pan going,

Cook the bacon until crispy. Drain onto a paper towel and drain the fat into a small Pyrex type bowl.

Turn the heat back on under your now empty, but brown bottomed bacon skillet and deglaze with balsamic vinegar scraping up that great stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan and let the balsamic cook down a little and thicken. Turn off the heat and whisk in the maple syrup and a couple of tablespoons (or more) of bacon fat. Toss the cooked bacon back into the pan and stir. Add your roasted vegetables and toss those around a bit to coat.

If you want to get fancy you can add toasted nuts or dried cranberries or top with crispy fried onions or shallots.

*I bought bagged brussels sprouts which contained a variety of sizes. To achieve uniformity, cut the large ones in quarters, the medium ones in half and keep the tiny ones whole. You can also buy them loose and choose ones that are uniform in size. I like the variation of crispiness you get from the differences in shapes and sizes. Save the loose leaves and roast those last. They're like kale chips and add another dimension to the dish. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn like mine did.

**cooking time will vary depending on how large your brussels sprouts are.

I'm gonna go all out and do a big batch of these. The leftovers make a great fritatta the next morning and a nice garnish for soup.

BLTCA pinwheels

This is another one of my office lunch go-to's, a super simple make ahead using either leftover chicken or grill up a chicken breast or two. I cooked up and crumbled some bacon and mixed it with my home made mayo. I added a little adobo sauce to the mayo for some kick, that's why its pink.

Bacon, lettuce, tomato, chicken & avocado.

A great everyday lunch wrap or you can fancy it up by slicing it into pinwheels. Tightly roll, wrap with plastic  twisting the ends. Chill for at least an hour or overnight if you want to make several  up on a Sunday and have one for lunch the next day. This is also a great way to use up leftover salad that's gone wilty.

There's really no recipe for this but here are the components:


cooked chicken breast diced up
cooked bacon crumbled
mayonnaise
salt & pepper to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl and set aside.

several leaves of lettuce, stacked and tightly rolled, then sliced into a chiffonade (thin strips)

one tomato-diced

several basil leaves, stacked and tightly rolled, then sliced into a chiffonade

one avocado halved, then quartered-make a bunch of diagonal cuts to, but not through the skin, scoop the  slices out of the skin with a spoon

On a large tortilla spread about a half cup of the chicken over two thirds of the tortilla. On the top third spread out just some of the mayonnaise so the tortilla will stick at the end.

Top the mix evenly with lettuce, tomato, basil and slices of avocado. Finish with a couple of turns of fresh cracked pepper. 

Beginning at the filling end, tightly roll up toward the plain end, you don't need to tuck the sides in.

Tear off a sheet of plastic wrap and lay it flat on your work surface. Place your roll on the bottom edge and center it. Roll it up and then twist the ends tightly. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Enjoy!

avocado bacon & tomato tartine

avocado bacon & tomato tartine, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.

The little kitchen was a hotbed of activity this weekend. There's nothing like a tidy kitchen to make me want to mess it up all over again. A clean kitchen is my blank canvas. I perused the possibilities.
I started out by reining in the wildly out of control stacks of photo-copied & printed recipes...things I've yanked out of magazines and the Chronicle Food & Wine section, recipes I've copied from stacks and stacks of cookbooks I've lugged back and forth from the library, those freebie recipe cards from the grocery store and the farmers market info table. I flipped through each and every one, evaluating the who's, what's, where's, why's, and when's.
As much as it pained me I did toss away a good third of the mass accumulation. Some were easy, like the quarter pound beet burger. The photo was gorgeous and all the ingredients seemed managable and it would have fullfilled my adventurous quest at meeting new vegetables but in the end it had to go, so many recipes so little time.

I can not believe how close I came to tossing this one: Dieters Tartine. The title of the recipe turned me off. I hate anything that labels anything as "Diet" food. It immediately sounds restrictive, even if it did come from my guru, Dorie Greenspan's gorgeous "Around My French Table", a gorgeously written and beautifully photographic inspiration of French cookery. I've marched this book back and forth from the library probably 6 or 7 times in the last year.
The ingredient list was small and I had every thing on hand, including a half of a large cucumber that was teetering on the edge of the trash can, two plum tomatoes and about a third of an Italian loaf that was definitely ready for toast.

I chopped up the tomato, cucumber and basil and tossed it with a little salt and pepper. The recipe called for some kind of fancy spreadable french cheese I'd never heard of, but what I did have was a big log of goat cheese that I ended up mixing in with a little greek yogurt to make it spreadable.

The slices of french bread are toasted in the broiler on one side only. My tweak was to rub some garlic on the hot toasted side.

I then spread the cheese and yogurt mix all over the toast, spooned the diced vegetables on top and finishing with a touch of white pepper, sea salt and a few strips of basil.

Super simple, waaay de-lish and kinda elegant.

I tweaked it the next day, adding avocado and bacon crumbles to my leftover vegetable mix from the day before. A Dieters Tartine? not so much.