Brussel sprouts are amazing!

Despite the never ending dreary rain in Vancouver this spring, the garden is doing pretty good. Its mostly the plants that like rain which are thriving, the kale, spinach, radishes and potatoes. (The squash plants however are flailing a bit).

When I was in the garden store, I picked up a six pack of brussel sprouts seedlings as my 'experimental' plant for the year on a whim. I have never grown them and know nothing about it, but I thought I'd try it for fun.

They are doing great, and are the coolest little plant! Sunday when I was out in the garden I discovered little baby sprouts. Who new they grow in the arm pits of the leaf branches!? Its so cool!! The plants are getting so big and leafy that I removed some leaves and sauteed them with Kale and they tasted great. Bonus! Anyways, I'm really charmed by these cute little buds. What a strange place to grow a fruit/flower**. It looks like you are actually supposed to remove the leaves to allow the buds to grow even bigger eventually.

I love gardening for so many reasons, one being that I'm always learning something new and getting to love my veggies more.

So in anticipation of the sprouts that will one day be, here are some great recipes. I think they brussel sprouts are so under-appreciated! Probably because we are used to having them boiled to death, but they are great roasted and Tess has a traditional family recipe that is amazing and is basically just tossing them with Newman's Dressing!

• Crispy brussel sprouts with garlic aioli
• Shredded brussel sprouts with bacon
• Roasted brussel sprouts with toasted almonds
• And in the WTF catagory... A brussel sprout door wreath (a waste of good sprouts if you ask me). 

** I got this awesome note from my botanist roomie/co-gardener, Tess, after I posted this:

ALSO: i noticed that you called a brussel sprout a fruit/flower, and so in light of your search to learn more about the plants you are eating, it is actually a perpetually dormant bud:

In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be specialized to develop flowers or short shoots, or may have the potential for general shoot development. A terminal bud occurs on the end of a stem and lateral buds are found on the side. A head of cabbage is an exceptionally large terminal bud, while Brussels sprouts are large lateral buds.