Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

I never ate Brussels sprouts until I started dating Shelby. Her mother would make them when we had dinner at her house and I grew to like them and then love them. They've become a staple in our special dinners. My daughter asked me the other day if I had my recipe available for the Brussels sprouts I make at home and I discovered I didn't. I'm writing it down now.

Note: Don't throw out the bacon grease or clean the skillet you fried it in, you'll need it for this recipe. Get a pot of boiling water ready too, we'll be blanching the Brussels sprouts. We don't want to blanch or leave the sprouts in the pan too long. If they're mushy, they're ruined.

Enjoy!

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Preparations

• 1 pot of boiling water
• ice bath for blanched Brussels sprouts
• Saved grease from cooked bacon

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Ingredients

• 1 package or approx. or 1 1/2 lbs of Brussels Sprouts (cleaned and trimmed)
• 1/2 lb of Bacon
• 2 tbsp of Bacon Grease
• 3-4 cloves of Garlic, minced
• 1/2 Red Onion, chopped
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1. Start a pot of boiling water, enough to handle the Brussels sprouts.
2. Fry the bacon. We like ours a little chewy, but cook it your preferred doneness. 
3. Remove bacon from the pan but leave the bits and pieces.
4. Put the Brussels sprouts into the boiling water, blanch for approximately 5 minutes.
5. Scoop sprouts out of boiling water and place in ice bath. Take them out when cooled and place in a strainer to dry.
6. Once cooled, cut Brussels sprouts in half, lengthwise.
7. Heat up skillet to about medium heat.
8. Add bacon grease.
9. Toss in the garlic and onions, cook for 1 minute.
10. Add Brussels sprouts, salt and pepper.
11. Cook to desired doneness and browned on the outside.
12. Remove from heat, toss in bowl with chopped bacon then serve.

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Blanching Tomatoes

We planted our garden boxes later than we should each year and then we cross our fingers and hope for a huge bounty. We plan on canning and jarring enough homegrown goodness to last us a lifetime!

This hasn't happened yet, but we're working on it. <promise!>

This year we have been picking some decent Roma tomatoes and small cucumbers from the garden. We figured we could clean and blanch the tomatoes and put them in the freezer to make sauce later. The cucumbers were made into refrigerator pickles. Shelby made some last season and they turned out great. She used a different recipe this time and they should be about ready.

I was checking out the tomatoes from our own garden when my mother called and said she had some a customer brought into her barber shop. She'll trade produce, seafood, venison, etc... all kinds of stuff if someone wants a haircut. She dropped off a box of of huge, ripe tomatoes with some other vegetables! I picked out a few that were too "ripe" and washed them off. The rest I put aside till we decided what we were going to do with them.

After a day or two we decided to go ahead and blanch, then freeze the tomatoes. Shelby likes to make her own tomato sauce at home, she'll put them in a pot all to stew and it makes the whole house smell great. We had a bunch of tomatoes so I blanched them in a couple of batches. Here's all you'll need:

• 1 Large Pot
• Salt
• 1 Large Bowl with ice water

That's it--of course water and tomatoes but I really don't need to say that right?

Fill the pot enough to cover the tomatoes with about 2 inches of water and for every cup of water put about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Put the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 30 seconds then removed them from the pot and immediately places them in the ice bath. This will stop the cooking process and keep the tomatoes firm.

After they sit in the ice bath for approximately 45 seconds remove them from the ice bath and remove the skins. You'll notice that the skin has started to peel by itself, it will easily separate from the flesh. Pick off stem or other parts you don't want to save from the outside.

What I do afterwards is cut the tomato in half and then gently squeeze it to remove the seeds from the inside chambers. That's it. I ended up with about 4 1/2 pounds of prepared tomatoes that were put in the freezer for later use. Easy!

Hydroponic Lettuce

I swung by the Old Beach Farmer's Market located near the Oceanfront in Virginia Beach. A beach staple, Croc's 19th Street Bistro, provides the space for the farmer's market in addition to participating in it (you saw the James River Oysters I posted right?)

John and Jacob of Heads Up Hydrogreens

It's been a little bit since I've made it out to the market and I passed by a new table for Heads Up Hydrogreens. They grow lettuce that is packaged alive and they contain no petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides according to their literature. I chatted with John and Jacob from Heads Up for a little bit and they gave me a couple heads to try out at home. They handed me a bag with a Batavian Crisp Head and Butter Crunch.

The next day Shelby made spaghetti and meatballs (chicken meatballs!) and I made a Greek style salad with the Batavian Crisp. The Batavian Crisp had a slightly curly leaf, it was in-between the crisp (imagine Iceberg) and Romaine. It was crisp, clean, great flavor and the stems weren't bitter like they are on some lettuce. You could see the bulb and get an idea of how it was cultivated.

Batavian Crisp

Shelby's mother was over for dinner and she really enjoyed the salad. I'm looking forward to trying the Butter Crunch next.