Jen's Amazing Brussels Sprouts

These are seriously amazing, I know what you're thinking, but you are wrong. Brussels Sprouts are awesome - especially when made with bacon :)

2 - 3 pound of Brussels sprouts

1/2 pound bacon

1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the sprouts and trim the ends off. Put them in a big bowl and toss them with enough olive oil to coat them. Spread them on a large cookie sheet and sprinkle on a little salt and pepper. Roast the sprouts for about 45 minutes to an hour. They should get a little black around the edges. Don't worry about the burny parts. They actually taste delicious!

While the sprouts are baking, you can cut the bacon into little pieces and fry it in a pan. Strain it on a paper towel once it is crisp.

Once the sprouts are cooked to your liking, toss them in the big bowl again and add the bacon, Parmesan and more salt and pepper if it needs it. It's that simple.

Sweet Potato Souffle - an Erickson Family Tradition

This is direct from Amanda - I just need a place to keep the recipe as it took me 20 minutes to find this morning :)

The filling:


3 C mashed sweet potato*

2 eggs

1 C sugar**

3/4 stick softened butter



The topping:


1 C brown sugar

3/4 stick softened butter

1/2 C chopped pecan

1/3 C flour

1 tsp vanilla



* I use canned sweet potato puree from Princella. It comes in a syrup. There used to be a non-syrup variety but I've been unable to find it. I have also tried this with other sweet potato purees as well as from scratch and none of them turned out as well. Drain the potato puree well.



** If you use the Princella with syrup variety, sugar the filling to taste. There's sugar in the topping, don't forget! I've been cutting the filling sugar back over the years but I don't know where I ended up last time I made this. Probably less than 1/2 cup.



Directions:
■Mix the filling in a blender or by hand and pour into buttered 2qt casserole dish.
■Mix the topping and work by hand until soft and crumbly. Cover the filling with the topping, lightly pressing the topping into the filling.
■Bake uncovered in 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes until lightly browned and bubbly.
■Serve warm with dinner!

Dusting off the cobwebs

Tap...tap...tap...anybody there? Time to do a little spring cleaning around here...it's been an interesting few months behind the curtain. Overwhelming to say the least and we all ended up doing some Minnesota style hibernating.

But I don't live in the mid-west anymore, and the flowers are starting to bloom and it's time to start thinking about planting things around here. Ready for the clunky lifetime-movie worthy transition? I need to do a little internal tending...open up the windows, let the stale air out, shake out the dust and start breathing. I have no idea if anyone will even read this...but I need to write here, get some things out of my head where they've been bouncing around for the last 6-12 months.

It's funny, I know I've mentioned this before here, but I SUCKED at keeping a journal/diary when I was younger. I always wanted to, but never kept it up. They are full of entries similar to this one I'm writing now: restarting after a long break. "Dear Diary...it's been WAY to long since I've written. ('cause you know, Diary missed me) I really want to do better with this, I promise I'm going to do so much better this year. Like, I am going to write at least 2-3 times a week cause I have all this stuff going on with Choralation/Ole Choir and {enter musical theater show name here} and {enter boy's name here, easy bet it was a Mike or a Matt, my dating history contains a disproportionate number of guys with those names} who I really like, and my parents are driving me crazy. So Diary, here's the goal, I'm totally going to keep this UP TO DATE".

Um, yeah. I don't have a pattern or anything. Hey, that would be fun! Maybe one of these days I'll post old diary entries from high school and college. Those wouldn't be embarrassing at all!

I set a goal at the beginning of the year, I've gotten in a cooking rut so I want to make 52 new recipes by the end of the year. I would love to keep track of them here so I can reference back. I've done 7 so far...real posts to follow.

Also, I'm doing my surgery (finally) this summer. I have an appointment next week to set the date, . It's almost an understatement to say that at this point this surgery will change my life. The last 6 months have been brutal in terms of increased pain and decreased mobility. But more than that, there have been slow and subtle changes over 10 years, things that have changed the trajectory of my life in many ways. I have no idea what the next year will bring, but I'd like to capture some of that "real time", without the filter of hindsight or the "bigger picture" 6 months down the line.

Those are the things I hope to put out there (here) again. Who knows though, hopefully it won't be another 6 months before the next post, but it is possible :)