Hmmm… Brussels Sprouts?

I am obsessed with two things currently: cast iron cookware and roasted vegetables. Instead of seeing them as a “tolerable” food I “should” be eating, I have discovered the joys of roasted Brussels sprouts and carrots.

Ain’t it grand when good food is healthy for you too? That is a rhetorical question, folks.

I’m also trying to get my 10″ Lodge frying pan good and seasoned, which means oven cooked bacon everyday now that I’ve seasoned it a couple of times the conventional way. It occurred to me when looking at all that leftover bacon grease from a handful of slices I needed to be using it for cooking other things, and had already been planning on trying roasted Brussels sprouts.

There are a million recipes floating around online for roasted Brussels sprouts, and this particular batch was sprouts, crushed garlic, and pepper. As I cooked them in leftover bacon drippings with a little olive oil to stretch it and completely coat the sprouts, I felt it was salty enough. You may want to add a little salt yourself.

Or if you really want to be lazy efficient, pick up a pack of pre-seasoned and pre-cut sprouts at Trader Joes.

For thriftier folks, wash your Brussels sprouts, trim off any damaged outer leaves, cut the base off and slice the bigger pieces in half. I mixed the ingredients in my iron skillet since some of the oil I wanted to coat my veggies with was already in the pan after cooking bacon (400 degrees for 20 minutes FYI).

Add three cloves of crushed garlic if you are a garlic lover like me, a little extra olive oil to make sure all Brussels sprouts are coated in oil, and season with pepper and/or salt to taste. Mix those little suckers around to make sure they are good and coated with oil.

Roast your Brussels sprouts at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, stirring them 2-3 times to make sure to maximize the carmelization to all sides.

These smell downright heavenly and have become a new staple of my diet. Sure, there is a little bacon fat in there, but it’s better than fixing up boiled veggies with no vitamins or flavor left, then drowning them in butter to compensate, right? Yes, that’s another rhetorical question.