The Muscles from Brussels

Well we certainly tested the strength of our commitment to our experiment tonight. If you’ll remember, Jeremy and I decided that we would eat whatever Real Simple put in front of us. I almost balked at this gem because Real Simple put the screws to us tonight with Cheese Ravioli with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon.  Dear God.

I have been dreading this meal since the day we first started our little journey. I’ve been slowly ramping up the exercise of vegetable intake. We began with eggplant. Epic failure, but Jeremy pushed through that (though I did have to eat mayo for the sake of fairness.) We now refer to that meal as The Eggplant Debacle of 2010. Obviously eggplant will not be making a Royal menu in the foreseeable future. Our next vegetable training was spinach, which was a resounding success, in spite of my concerted effort to totally destroy it. I learned from the spinach hurdle that Jeremy likes otherwise repulsive vegetables if I mask their flavors with fruit. I’ll put spinach in the win column.

We’ve also been practicing our palette calisthenics. I convinced Jeremy that turkey burgers aren’t fake hamburgers. I successfully turned spicy Italian sausage into tacos. I made Chinese-y/Thai-ish food based solely on color coding ingredients. The beginning of each of these meals began with one phrase exchanged between Jeremy and me: “Trust me.” Luckily the meal always came through (except for The Eggplant Debacle of 2010… but we’ll forget that happened.)

So I went into this evening’s meal dreading the cloud of dirty gym sock cabbage stench hanging over the house for a day (God willing it would only be one day.) I don’t know what that smell can do to a cat’s sense of ownership of a room, but I was not looking forward to finding out what Kitty was going to do to retake the living room. I certainly was not sprinting towards the assured look of disgust on Jeremy’s face when he walked into the kitchen to see me neck deep in pasta and our leafy green friend (no, not that one.) But, we chugged forward, as we have for the past two weeks, into the culinary unknown hoping for the best—and to avoid food poisoning.  I was just praying that all our training would not be in vain.

I knew we were going to catch a little bit of a break on the sprouts when I saw that Real Simple was allowing me to “thinly slice” the little guys before cooking. So I thinly sliced the hell out of those things. A real chef might actually identify what I did to the sprouts as chopping (probably hacking,) but we had no real chef on hand. No harm. No Foul. Thin sprouts. I also knew that I had a fighting chance when I realized the sprouts would be sautéed in a small amount of bacon grease. Now, if I’ve learned anything from watching my mother-in-law in her farm kitchen, it’s that bacon grease can make pretty much anything taste good. So tonight, bacon grease was my life raft. I sliced and diced the sprouts, soaked them in bacon grease, dumped those puppies on our cheese ravioli, said a little prayer and rang the dinner bell.

I feel it is my duty to warn you that the apocalypse is nigh. I consider you all my friends (especially now that you’re reading this blog,) and friends tell friends that the end of times is near. You are probably wondering how I know this and how the day of reckoning relates to my dealings in the kitchen. Well here it is: Jeremy ate Brussels sprouts—and liked them. I’ll give you a minute to take that in and make your peace with God.  Yes, it is true. I have found the secret to getting Jeremy to eat any vegetable on the planet—soak it in bacon grease. I never thought I would be the person to ring in Judgment Day. I certainly didn’t think I would do it with bacon grease and Brussels sprouts. But with experimentation comes change (“change” strikes me as a slight understatement when referencing the Rapture… but whatever.) I don’t really know how to end this blog after announcing the impending end of days other than to say that I would definitely recommend trying strange recipes. You never know what may happen. It could bring about the end of the world. Or, even more importantly, your husband may learn to love vegetables.

**I also want to say a short thanks to everyone who has been reading and everyone leaving comments. It is a great motivator on days that I don’t want to cook or write or both. I am always glad I did when I see the tips, love and encouragement you leave me. Thanks!!**