picky eater

Growing up, I was a picky eater. When my Mom fed me bananas as a baby, I spit them out. (Still not a huge fan, but they are good with peanut butter.) The only vegetable I loved was broccoli. When my Mom made pizza, she'd have to make a plain one for me; strictly cheese and pepperoni. Now, my husband and I grow vegetables that I wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole when I was younger: peppers, Winter and Summer squash, green and yellow beans, beets, radishes...

I'm not sure if it was before we got married or after, but earlier in the relationship, my now mother-in-law fixed Brussels sprouts. They were from a bag in the frozen food section, but that didn't matter: she had sautéed those sprouts in butter, with chopped garlic and a little bit of lemon juice- I was in love! Maybe it was the butter, but this vegetable was AMAZING!!  I never had them growing up (well, if my Mom had ever cooked them, I probably would've just turned up my nose and pushed the bowl away). I definitely had seconds.

When we moved back to Pennsylvania and started a garden, I knew we had to try to grow some of these delicious Brussels. Last year, we bought starts and transplanted them. Did the flea beetles love those little plants or what? We didn't even get one little sprout of a Brussel. Thankfully, someone sold them at the Farmer's Market and I was able to enjoy some. This year would be different.
All of our brassicas (broccoli, cabbages and Brussels sprouts), we started from seed. Of course, when we got the packet of seeds, we didn't need to use all of them- that would've been a lot of sprouts. In the end, we transplanted about twenty seedlings. Do you know how many little sprouts that is for just two people? A LOT. (Good thing we have some people to share with!)
One thing about growing Brussels sprouts that has helped us a lot is, we cut the top growth of the plant once little Brussels start coming on, about the top three of four inches. (Don't throw them out. You can cook up the leaves just like kale or chard; delicious!) Doing this puts energy back into developing a good size Brussels sprout and hinders the plant from continuing to grow taller.
Whatever happens to be in season in our garden, we eat it. What we can't get to, we preserve. Things like corn, broccoli, snap peas, some green beans, zucchini and Summer berries, we freeze and it's the same with Brussels sprouts.

My husband cut off the leaves of the stalks so it would be easier to cut off the Brussels sprouts. It looked like a massacre!

 

 

 

 

It took quite a while to break them all off the stalk, clean them up, parboil them and bag them-- and I've only done half of them-- but as with all preserving, whether freezing or canning, it's totally worth it! We are going to have a delicious Winter! <3