Fiddleheads - Bad, Chicken - Good

I had all the plans to roast brussel sprouts for my visiting family. My aunt and I decided to make some tasty, crunchy, oven-fried chicken, and roasted brussel sprouts would have been the perfect compliment.

But IGA didn't have any brussel sprouts. :(

I stood at the hole where the sprouts should be and that's when I saw them. Fiddleheads.


Pic courtesy of Wiki

I first saw fiddleheads at the American Folk Festival in Bangor. They were... umm... pickled. And even the woman manning the booth couldn't really tell us what was so good about them. They are ferns and only available for a very short period in these Northern parts.

Sadly, I couldn't find any recipes that just deal with fiddleheads straight out. Many of the recipes wanted me to use them in stew or some other dish. So... I just roasted them with a little bit of oil and sea salt.

As far as I'm concerned, needn't bother.


When I first opened the container, the fiddleheads smelled like wet camp. You know the smell... it's all wet and woody and dirty. And the fiddleheads were very wet themselves. They weren't crisp and dry like a brussel sprout or a broccoli floret, but I thought that maybe that would improve.

It didn't.


When they came out of the oven they smelled like hot, wet camp. Ugh. My dad and I ate a few of them. But they were not what one would call... good.

What was good... was the chicken. It was fantastic!


I made a crunchy coating of approximately 2c crushed Parmesan Basil Wheat Thins, 1/2c parmesan cheese, and 1t salt. My aunt stepped up and dipped the chicken fillets in egg and then in the crumbs. The chicken was baked for... about 45 minutes, but I don't remember exactly so check it at 30 minutes and then reassess.



Mmm... the chicken probably didn't need to bake as long as I baked it, but it was soooo tasty. The crackers have a strong parmesan basil flavor but it mellows a bit as it cooks. My mom didn't like the crackers for that reason, but she loved the chicken.

I'm definitely going to make this chicken again. I'm going to experiment with all the other Wheat Thin flavors, but then I might just go crazy with all crackers. Why not?!

Fear Conquering 101: Brussel Sprouts

Now, I don't like to delve into my dusty past, but I'm going to do it right now.

Just work with me.

When I was quite young, my mother was inspired by who-knows-what-or-whom to introduce her family to brussel sprouts. I believe that her brilliant sprout preparation involved boiling them. Or steaming, but I don't think she had gotten the steamer at that point. Anyway... whatever she did to them rendered them grass-like and completely unappealing.


Well... at this tender age, I enjoyed very many vegetables. This brussel sprout, however, did not go over well. I had quite a fair amount of trouble swallowing the brussel sprout and there was some crying and mild amount of hysteria. Not my finest hour.


My mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided that this was the first time that she would enforce the 'eat all your vegetables or you can't leave the table' rule that I had heard rumor of from my little friends.


Add in the cackling presence of my brother, sister, and both parents and this brief introduction to the brussel sprout turns into something reminiscent of a harrowing scene from A Christmas Story. And, yes, I am a little bit unimpressed that this story still gets my family rollin'.


You know what folks? The joke's on you because this week I roasted brussel sprouts a la The Post Punk Kitchen and I ate all of them. Happily. They were wicked good. I've conquered my fear of the almighty brussel sprout and now I need to pass on the goodness.

Mom: I love you, but your brussel sprouts suck. I dare you to roast them. Be honest, you didn't like them the first time either.

Roasted Celery

I have an affinity for buying the giant bundles of celery at IGA. They are considerably cheaper than the smaller big brand packages, and I fall for their cute local-ness every time.

That means that I often have a lot of celery in the fridge. I've been trying to think creatively about that celery, but today I really got to business. What I wanted was roasted broccoli, but what I had was celery.

I thought about just having some celery and hummus, but I hate hate hate the celery strings.


See? Unacceptable.

Instead of trying to figure out a dozen recipes that require a little bit of celery each, I decided to mainstage the celery and roast it. Why should broccoli have all the fun? I found a recipe at Astray Recipes, but it is one of those recipes that is posted just below an add for yellow teeth cures, so... I'll just tell you what to do and you can avoid that upsettingly toothy image.

Chop the celery to manageable pieces. If there are pieces that don't look enthused about the roasting, feel free to pitch them. There are plenty of stalks that would love to have a chance like this.


Toss the stalks with a little bit of olive oil and put them in a 375 oven for 30 minutes.


After one minute in the oven, realize you should add some garlic. Sprinkle chopped garlic in a really haphazard way and put it all back in. Like you mean it this time.

Watch the sun set while the celery roasts and lament the lack of sunlight available for remaining blog pics.

Towards the end of the 30 minutes, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme and enough breadcrumbs to look good. When the timer dings, remove celery, sprinkle with mixture and put those celeries back in for another 10 minutes.


When the timer dings again, shriek with delight. Remove dish from oven. Happily stand over it for a minute while clutching your hands together (one oven mitt still on). This step may seem superfluous, but you won't understand how good it is until you try it.

Plate.


(I awkwardly plated mine on top of some leftover meatballs and whole grain linguini.)

And enjoy.

Feel good about the fact that you are eating celery without concurrently (and accidentally) flossing.