Nothing Like a Deadline to Inspire Me: Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranate

Blogging has been a great way for me to rediscover my writing voice – I’ve wanted to be a (full-time, professional, PAID) writer since I was approximately 6 years old. After hanging on to this idea for a couple of decades, I somehow lost sight of this ambition in my twenties (ironically, the era of my life when I was a full-time, professional, paid technical writer. Maybe all those software instructions just sucked the creative juices out of me. Imagine that.).  At any rate, blogging has been a nice gateway drug back into the writing life. It’s led to some other projects that I’ve enjoyed very much and generally made me feel happy about having some creative output that doesn’t (1) get eaten and disappear forever or (2) require any sort of cleaning up afterwards.

My current relationship with goal-setting is far too complicated for this post; suffice to say that I’ve tried to take a systematic, planned approach to integrating my writing into my regular life, complete with editorial calendars and timelines and to-do lists, etc. As a result, I have blogged less in the last 2 months than I have in the last 2 years. It’s inevitable that I was going to post something today, because it’s the last day of the month and I’m looking at how little progress I’ve made towards the written goals which allegedly are supposed to keep me accountable. Clearly it’s time for a new system.

Wondering what the quilt looks like?

My personal How I Wish I Was Spending My Time trifecta is Cook – Craft – Write (not necessarily in that order), and it appears that I can sustain 2 at a time. The last couple of months have included a lot of cooking and I finally finished the quilt for my friend’s soon-to-arrive baby, so writing has fallen by the wayside. I just got a couple of new craft magazines and inspiration for another writing project, so odds are good that David is taking over the cooking as soon as he gets through finals week, and I’ll be blogging about what an amazing cook he is.

This particular recipe is a dish I took to a Seder that we attended earlier in the month. Potlucks are always a huge bummer, because we inevitably can’t eat 99.9% of what’s there and it makes us collectively feel very sorry for ourselves. The recipe comes from the amazing and wonderful Tori Avey, who writes as The Shiksa in the Kitchen and also as The History Kitchen (a marvelous way to lose a couple of hours – such fascinating stuff!). We love Brussels sprouts and we love pomegranates, and this looked very pretty on a white serving platter with toasted walnuts sprinkled all around.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranate Molasses

2 lb. Brussels sprouts, or however much is on the stalk or in the container you pick up in the produce department

¼ cup olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 cup walnuts, toasted (don’t skip the toasting!)

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Fresh pomegranate seeds, optional (this is for the garnish. I couldn’t find any actual pomegranates so we skipped it and everyone was still perfectly happy with the end result)

Preheat the oven to 450 and cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.

Wash the sprouts and cut them in half, then toss with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Roast 15 minutes, until they are barely tender and some of the outer leaves are starting to crisp up.

Toss the sprouts with the walnuts. Pour onto a serving platter, drizzle with the pomegranate molasses, and sprinkle with the fresh pomegranate seeds, if you’re using them.

This dish holds well at room temperature and tastes just fine a couple of hours later. We put it in the warming oven for a bit, but I don’t think I’d necessarily recommend that because the sprouts got more cooked than I like. If you make this in advance, just give it time to come to room temperature rather than blasting it with the microwave – although it really is easy enough that you could make it at the last minute.