Here's the thing about brussel sprouts and me. My love for them and their trendiness just happened to coincide. I first sampled brussel spouts sometime in college. I used to spend Yom Kippur with my friend Shari's family, and one year, her mom made brussel sprouts for the pre-fast meal. Wow! They were amazing. These little balls of cabbage. Who knew! Despite this revelation, I didn't cook them myself until a year or two ago when roasted brussels began to regularly make their way into my vegetable side rotation.
(A little background about vegetables and me: Growing up, there was always a vegetable served with dinner. My mother almost always served a salad, and often there was a another vegetable side. I always opted for the salad--especially because more often than not, there was Good Seasons Italian Dressing on the side. I liked my vegetables raw. Carrots, celery, broccoli--they were all good as long as they were uncooked. Seth tells me that my youthful preference for raw vegetables is not normal. Apparently, most children prefer cooked over raw vegetables. I don't know if Seth is correct in his assertion, but I'll tell you this, it is not coincidental that for the past several years I have eated salad for my lunchtime meal.
I left for college still preferring my vegetables raw, but all of a sudden, my taste buds grew up. It probably started with steamed or sauteed broccoli and has progressed to nearly all vegetables (sans beets and most mushrooms) cooked in every imaginable way. Sometime after moving in with Seth five (!) years ago, I got on the roasting bandwagon. And more often then not, a cooked vegetable meant a roasted vegetable.)
Back to the brussels. As much as I love brussels, I started to tire of them. A salad of roasted veggies, lettuce, feta and balsamic no longer had the same appeal for me. And then I discovered the raw brussel. I had seen salads made of brussel "slaw" on food blogs, but still somewhat in fear of my Cuisinart, the idea of taking out the grating attachment seemed like too much work. Over Passover, my friend Anna served a brussel salad with grapes and hazelnuts. Yum! I asked her how she prepped the brussels, and it turns out, she just sliced them by hand. Why, I could do that! So, I did, and the rest is history. For the last two weeks, I've eaten a variety of brussel slaws and other raw greens with brussels mixed in. Lemon juice is my go-to topper, but I may experiment with apple cider vinegar this week.
Some of my recent raw brussel salads:
- Brussels, broccoli, craisins, chopped dried apricots, chopped almonds, guacamole, lemon juice;
- Kale, brussels, grapefruit, mandarins, feta, lemon juice;
- Kale or romaine, brussels, chopped dried figs, craisins, walnuts.
More salads and photos coming soon!
