Brussel Sprouts

I think this little story may explain my aversion to vegetables. It's my moms fault.


Her favorite vegetable is Brussel Sprouts. She would make them for dinner, set the plate down in front of me and just the smell of them made me gag. Really. I would put one in my mouth, my eyes would water and I'd be making these horrible noises and my stomach would revolt. I couldn't even wash them down with huge gulps of milk. Reliving it is making me sick. Like it was just yesterday, not forty years ago.

One night, after an hour of attempted swallowing of these wretched things, she left the room to clean up the kitchen with the threat of what would happen if she came back and those brussel sprouts were still on my plate.

We had dinner on the couch with tv trays because it was the late sixties and tv trays were cool. As soon as she leaves I am frantically looking around trying to figure out if I can feasibly shove these three little sprouts under the couch cushion, or under the rug, when I notice there is a little gap at the bottom of the sectional couch where the two pieces don't quite fit together. A gap that was the perfect hideaway for three little disgusting sprouts. When mom returned I proudly showed her my clean plate and there were no dire consequences, I slept like a baby.

Two weeks later.

I am home from school and my mom says she has made a special snack for me. I am excited, mom never makes snacks. My happy little seven year old self runs to the counter where mom has carefully laid out my snack, on a plate, with a napkin and a fork. Yep, you guessed it, three shriveled, dried up brussel sprouts...with a glass of milk. I burst into tears begging and pleading for her to go ahead and kill me, just don't make me eat those things. I did not sleep so well that night.

No, this is not one of those 'my life as a child was horrible because of what my parents did to me and I am still in therapy because of it' stories. (I do have those though and really was in therapy but that's another blog.) She did not make me eat them. As a matter of fact she never made me eat them again. I lead my life happily brussel sprout free until....Bob. Guess what his favorite vegetable is?

I find myself looking for recipes to make these horrid things because I love him so much. (Now THAT will make you gag if the brussel sprouts don't.) The picture is my most recent recipe, it has green beans in it too. Usually I make two vegetables, brussel sprouts for him and M&M's for me but this recipe saved me the extra work. And it was pretty much healthy. See recipe tab if you dare to try it.