Vista

In summary: eugh.

It’s my own fault.  @abelandcole provide me with the opportunity to pre-check the contents of each fruit and veg box, to filter out things CHiP and I don’t like but I’m not very good at remembering.  Consequently this week’s box included brussel sprouts.  However one of the reasons for getting the box in the first place was to add some more variety to our diet so… I turned to Twitter:

A tweet for help

And within minutes, several people had responded:

Responses via twitter

On Facebook too:

Response via Facebook

The prospect of left-over tuna and rice forced my hand this evening when I opted instead to do a compare and contrast experiment using all five suggestions:

• steamed with butter (@big_norm)
• fried with red onion and balsamic vinegar (Sharon)
• fried with bacon (@cubicgarden)
• fried with bacon, pine nuts and cheese (@dani_dutra)
• à l’orange (@jenblacker)

Except I had a limited quantity of sprouts so I decided that the two fried with bacon suggestions could be merged into one (the more interesting one, of course).

Clockwise from the top: fried with bacon, pine nuts and cheese; à l’orange; fried with red onion and balsamic vinegar; steamed and topped with butter

By far, the simplest to prepare and cook was the first – steamed with butter.  Sprouts à l’orange (recipe: http://bit.ly/fsI4p1) is a faff to prepare and, unfortunately, reconfirmed a long held prejudice against all things flavoured orange that aren’t actually an orange.  Fried with red onion and balsamic vinegar was quick and easy and tasted OKish too (as taste disguising goes) but the runaway success was fried with bacon, pine nuts and cheese.  But you probably knew that already, right?  Bacon, nuts and cheese = nom.   It was so good, that I didn’t even taste the sprouts!  Hang on, though.  What’s the point in going to the trouble of preparing and cooking the things if you can’t taste them..?

So, in conclusion: Many thanks to everyone who responded.  I had thought I might, maybe receive one interesting idea so to have choice was great.  It was fun trying them all out too.  And, thanks to you, I won’t be adding sprouts to our dislike list (there’s so much on there already that I worry that soon we’ll just be receiving potatoes, onions and carrots…) but if they turn up again I think I’ll probably just stick to steaming them.  They’re actually not bad like that.  But if I can’t overcome the sense that that’s just too boring, I’ll be turning to bacon, nuts and cheese to spice things up.

Spice, now there’s an idea…

Delicious and gluten-free.

Ingredients

• 3 oz gram flour
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 4 tbps water
• 4 oz grated onion
• 4 oz grated potato
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 5 tbsp oil
• Kitchen roll

Method

1. Mix together the dry ingredients
2. Add the water to the dry ingredients and mix to a smooth batter
3. Stir the grated onion and potato into the batter
4. Stir in the sliced onion
5. Heat the oil
6. Gently drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil
7. Flip each bhajji over when the bottom side becomes golden brown
8. Once both sides of the bhajji are brown, remove it from the oil and place it on kitchen roll to soak off some of the oil

Result

Approximately 8 onion bhajjis (depending on how large you make them).

My Co-Habiting Partner (CHiP) is a fan of Super Noodles and every so often, green with envy at the ease with which he’s able to speedily majyk up a hot, tasty (each to their own) snack , I try to create a gluten-free version.  Today’s went like this:

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped however you like
• 1 tsp butter
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp garlic granules
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp coarse ground pepper
• salt
• 1/4 pt boiling water
• 1 portion rice noodles (uncooked)
• 1 olive oil
• 3 cardamon pods

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion.  Stir until the onion has softened to your liking.  Add the turmeric, curry powder, ginger, pepper, garlic granules, tomato puree and vinegar and stir together.  Add the water, oil, cardamom pods and noodles.  Stir briefly to mix everything together and prevent the noodles sticking together. Turn up the heat to bring the concoction to the boil. Once it’s boiling turn the heat back down again so that it simply simmers and keep it simmering until the noodles are cooked and the sauce has reduced to a consistency you’re happy with.  Remove from the heat, pour into a dish and serve.

Result

Tasty :)

Update: Note to self – try adding banana and currant and/or raisins next time.