Wicked healthy green balls

It’s official: brussel sprout greens need a publicist. Though nutritious, delicious, and just as easy to grow, pick and prepare as collard greens or chard, brussel sprout greens are far from being stars in the garden veggie world. They’re more like Paris Hilton’s older sister (does she have one?) who’s not-so-hot but is smart and has a nice personality. The problem is, for all that brussel sprouts bring to the table, we know only a handful of people who eat them. Over the last few weeks, though, since brussel sprouts are growing like mad in our community garden (at the Brooks School in North Andover), we’ve been getting creative with them, whipping up concoctions like curried brussel sprout greens with tofu, a pesto-esque pasta sauce with the greens, and a supergreen omelet with spinach, collard greens, broccoli, chives and brussel sprout greens all mixed with a few cheeses and spices. And our latest brussel sprout concoction...green balls!

So much better than blue balls. Start by chopping a few peeled carrots in a food processor with the metal blade until small. Throw in about 10 stemmed and washed brussel sprout greens, ripped in halves or thirds, and process again until very small.

Next, throw in a can of drained and rinsed black beans, a few handfuls of instant oats, salt and pepper and an egg and process. Keep adding oats through the feed tube until the consistency is just a hair away from being dry. Remove the container from the processor and place in the fridge to sit for at least 45 minutes.

With floured hands, form the mixture into balls.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet and place the balls evenly throughout the pan. Drop the heat to medium-low and cook, turning the balls after about 5 minutes or so. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes, checking every once in a while to make sure that nothing is sticking to the pan.

We served these on a bed of baby beet greens from our garden with a simple vinagrette, accompanied by both a curry mayo and a garlic and watercress mayo I whipped up for dipping sauces.

If you don't have ready access to brussel sprout greens, try substituting collard greens, kale or most any other leafy green in their place and let me know how it turns out.

Hash in a flash

If today's explorations in cooking with brussel sprout greens lacked beauty and creativity, it was none the poorer in taste, thanks primarily to the sausage. But then, what dish dripping in a little sausage grease wouldn't be tasty? This is a package of the stuff we got at Appleton farms in Ipswich, MA, already flavored with fennel and other spices; the greens are from our garden.

Once you prep the ingredients, the whole thing shouldn't take more than a half hour to cook.
1 potato, peeled and chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
About 7 or 8 brussel sprout greens leaves
1 package of sausage
Salt and pepper


Heat some olive oil in a cast-iron skillet and sautee the onions and greens until soft. Remove from the pan and reserve. Add a little more olive oil and cook the potatoes over medium-low heat until soft, stirring occasionally. Remove the potatoes from the pan and reserve with the greens mixture. Put the sausage into the pan with the garlic, salt and pepper. Break up the sausage and stir constantly over medium-high heat until the meat is cooked through.

Return the greens and potatoes to the meat and heat through.

Enjoy. Immensely.

BS Pie

No, not that kind of bs. We're talking brussel sprouts. Brussel sprout greens, to be specific. Since our brussel sprouts must be juicing it up on the sly, we've got a plethora of greens that we're getting creative with.

The ingredients are simple:
Brussel sprout greens, chopped into small pieces
Two medium-sized onions, sliced thinly
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves and about a teaspoon of oregano
4 eggs
Parmesan cheese
2 cups of flour and 1 stick of butter, cut up into pieces (for the crust)

Heat some olive oil in a cast-iron pan. Sautee the onion and garlic over low heat until translucent. Add the greens and spices and cook until soft.

In the meantime, prep the pie crust. Put the flour and the butter into a food processor with the metal blade. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Add cold water, a little bit at a time, until the dough turns into a ball. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and place it into a buttered pie dish. Shred the parmesan into the crust then cover with the greens mixture from which you should remove the bay leaves.

Serve hot or allow to cool and eat like a pizza pie with your fingers. Serves four.

Verde, verde, mucho verde!

We were so in love with the results of last's night dish with the brussel sprout greens that we decided to get a few more leaves and do a little more experimenting. All the better that this dish turned into another good excuse to pick off a few more leaves and sprigs off our much beloved basil and rosemary plants.


For two people:
About 12 small brussel sprout greens, chopped coarsely
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt
Fresh mozzarella cheese balls
Fresh basil and rosemary, chopped

Heat some olive oil in a pan. Sautee the onions and garlic for a few minutes, then add the greens and a generouse amount of salt. Stir to cover with oil and cook for a few minutes. Add a very small amount of water (really just to barely cover the bottom of the pan), cover and cook until the greens are very soft.

Throw the greens into a food processor. Heat a small amount of cream in a separate sauce pan. Add the cream to the greens in the processor and turn the machine on to process until the greens and the cream are well-blended into a thick sauce. Return the sauce to the small saucepan, stir in the basil and heat through.

Serve over pasta with a few mozzarella balls and a sprinkling of pine nuts and an olive or two. (If I had this recipe to do over, I would have added the mozzarella balls to the saucepan with the basil and let it soften a bit).

Curried brussel sprout greens with tofu

Over the last few weeks, we've been watching the vegetables in our garden grow. The brussel sprouts in particular have bloomed beautifully, their dark, bluish-green leaves reaching for the sky. When we were out there yesterday evening, Josh wondered out loud if these leaves couldn't be eaten much like beet greens or collard greens. A quick search on the internet later and we had our answer: yes, they can!


Here's what you need:
About 15 young brussel sprount leaves, stems snipped and sliced thinly
1/2 small onion, sliced thinly
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 block firm tofu, cut into squares
Salt, pepper, curry powder
Cream
A couple handfuls of pistachios

Fry the tofu in olive oil over medium-low heat, turning over occasionally, until the pieces brown. Remove from the tofu from the pan and reserve. Lower the heat and sautee the onions and garlic for a few minutes. Stir in a good tablespoon of curry powder and salt to taste and cook a few minutes more. Add the greens and stir to coat with the oil. Raise the heat to medium-low again and cook until soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the pistachios and stir. Cook for about 5 more minutes then remove the greens and nuts from the pan and reserve with the tofu. Drop the heat to low and pour some cream into pan, perhaps about a half-cup. Heat through and add the tofu and greens back to the mix. Stir and allow to cook for five more minutes or so.

Serve hot on brown rice for a hardy, healthy meal. This recipe rocks. Seriously.