After a long hiatus of being too busy and not having time to post what I've cooked (even though I SWEAR I've been cooking), here is a recipe update. Since I'm about to move in a month, I'm trying to use up all the food we have in our pantry and freezer, which is kind of a fun little experiment. It's like an episode of Chopped, except the mystery basket isn't filled with things like liverwurst.
With that being said, I love brussel sprouts. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. My roommate on the other hand, will eat them in public to save face if we're at someone's house, but would rather me keep them 100 feet away from any of the food I cook. Unfortunately, for her, we had a bag of brussel sprouts left in the freezer. MUHAHAHAH.
I don't know how I started liking brussel sprouts. I don't have any of those weird stories growing up where my mom tried to get me to eat them and I would throw a fit because I didn't like them. Actually, I never knew what they were because we never at them growing up. However, I assumed since everyone else hated them, I would probably hate them as well. In grad school, one of our classmates opened a bag of brussel sprouts, microwaved them, and ate them like popcorn while we watched Grey's Anatomy. I was curious, because by the age of 26 I realized that I (contrary to what I thought) liked a lot of things that other people did not like. I tried one. I liked it. End of story.Since then, I love having a bag of frozen brussel sprouts around just in case.
So, what do you do with brussel sprouts, 2 large sweet potatoes, and spicy italian sausage? You roast them all up and mix it together for a hearty meal. Although, this is more of a fall treat, it was the easiest thing I've made in awhile and I had everything in the house already.
First, heat the oven the 475 degrees F. I put the sausage on one side of my pan and the cubed sweet potatoes on the other. I put a little olive oil, salt, and pepper on the sweet potatoes to season them. I realized, you don't need a lot of oil because as the sausages cook and the oils are released, you can mix that with the potatoes to help with the roasting process.
Rotate the sausage at least once then after 30 minutes, take the sausage out and let cool on a plate. Add the bag of dethawed brussel sprouts and mix everything together so the oil leftover from the sausage is spread evenly. Keep in the oven for another 20 minutes or so, until nicely browned. When it's all done zest some lemon peel and add a couple sprigs of thyme, mix everything together. I cut the sausage into bite size pieces since I plan to take it to work tomorrow and don't want to deal with cutting up sausage. I know, I'm lazy using cutlery at work :)
Honestly, you can't even TELL there are brussel sprouts in there...right?
