Pre preparing sprouts.

Brussels sprouts lover here. Versatile and delicious. Several ways of making them using fresh sprouts:
• cook, drain, butter and chopped dill
• roast with olive oil, salt/pepper (plain)
• roast with olive oil, pine nuts (half-way), then sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese
.• sauté in butter/olive oil, salt/pepper (plain)
• sauté with pancetta and shallots

Any of these are delicious! Cleaning and peeling them takes a while. Do this the day before and refrigerate in a plastic bag. Blot dry with paper towels before roasting, sautéing.

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Roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash is a delicious and healthy dish that combines two popular and nutritious vegetables. Brussels sprouts are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. They are a member of the cruciferous vegetable family, which also includes broccoli and kale.
Winter squashes like butternut squash are rich in fiber, potassium, and vitamin A.
You can check out this delicious recipe on lifestylefoodies.com

We were given some sprout stalks recently. Quite good roasted for lunch yesterday. The stalks were shorter, the sprouts lovely.

yes fresh for me..

I cook mine on the day - picked from the garden, prepared then cooked in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes & served with a knob of butter. Totally delicious, all the family love them and they're my favourite vegetable, simply prepared.

I love sprouts . Lovely and nutty when boiled al dente. I make a Korma sauce with cashews nuts (vegan recipe) and have then with that. They are not nearly as nice if not cooked from raw.

Just use them fresh but you can score the bottoms and take off old leaves ahead of time. Parsnips, carrots etc are perhaps less awful when frozen.

But I'm a fuss pot. The only veg I use that are frozen are peas, sweetcorn and whole green beans... the latter being actually nicer than fresh and especially at this time of year when they have travelled from afar and are very expensive and not so good. Lidl do excellent ones.

I love sprouts😍
Sprout gratin my absolute favorite. Trouble is I always wish I had eaten more of them but so much food on table makes it prohibitive 😱😱😱

I don't prepare them early, apart from wash and chopping the sprouts and chopping bacon and an onion, then fry them - lovely!

Callistemon21 - the comment about your MIL just made me think of a loving family at Christmas. 😊

Nannan2

I dont know why youre all saying put them on now? Is that a joke on them needing a long time to cook🤔

It’s a long standing joke, because sprouts were traditionally very often boiled to a mush. I dare say some still are!

I prep mine on Christmas Eve and keep in a mesh bag in the fridge. We all really like sprouts so I don’t do them with pancetta or anything, just very lightly steamed or simmered. Certainly no sprouts-mush in this house!

We love our sprouts, already had them a few times this month, we prepare them (and everything else) Christmas Eve then just 5 mins simmer on the big day, I don't think the texture is good if frozen

The few people in our family who will eat them are happy having them roasted. I just just drizzle them with oil, season well and chuck in the oven for 20 mins ish

I know that the bicarb was an old-fashioned thing. My mother always used it and it did make the cabbage and other greens a lovely colour and improved the taste. I achieve the same effect by putting them in ice cold water straight out of the saucepan (watch them change colour!) and then keeping them warm with a bit of butter.

As well as adding chestnuts at that stage, I also have a recipe where you add seedless white grapes instead. Just toss in butter with the sprouts for a bit. Looks and tastes nice with the roast.

I've never understood the need to shred sprouts and toss them in a frying pan with all sorts of spices. They have their own taste and don't need "enhancing". In fact. I like to nibble any left over whole cooked sprouts straight out of the fridge. Like little sweets.

Yes tinged with frost- the first frost of winter- meaning for when to be picked.

I thought bicarb was only for dried mushy peas? They used to have a white tablet of it in the packet?

I dont know why youre all saying put them on now? Is that a joke on them needing a long time to cook🤔

No,no,no,no,no. Bicarb was used to restore colour when cabbage was boiled for 20 minutes or more. Bicarb also reduces the vitamin contentof the cabbage.

Nowadays, cabbage is cooked only for minutes, and bicarb is not necessary.

I do not think anyone does it these days.

Do people still put bicarb in the "green water" lkke my mother used to?

Callistemon21

I'm 😲 wondering what the consequences were of the dogs eating all those sprouts, Gwyllt 😁

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I was wondering about the dogs' reaction to being rinsed off.

Chardy

Someone used to insist that sprouts tasted rubbish until after the first frost, so uncooked sprouts always go into the freezer as soon as I buy them. I've never found them bitter.

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In my innocence, I thought that sprouts, like sugar beet, weren't harvested until the first frost had got them, as the freezing converted the sugar in them. The same process that makes potatoes inedible if left in the earth when the frost comes.

Thanks, guess where I am going later!

Frozen kittylester. I don’t usually buy frozen sprouts, but they looked tempting.

There were loads of packs of reduced sprouts in our Waitrose yesterday. I was tempted to buy them and freeze, but I can't risk any disasters on Christmas Day.

They sound good, Molly, Were they frozen or fresh.