I am a little under the weather at the moment. As it turns out, I have shingles which is affecting my ear and head and is incredibly painful, makes me very tired, dizzy and unfocused and I just want to itch my head like there is no tomorrow. However, while I do not have to go to work as I have been forbidden to, some aspects of life must go on, like being a parent. This week, is a prime example of how happy I am that I meal prep and plan our meals 2 weeks in advance. All I have to do, is take things out of the fridge or freezer and heat them. I literally LOVE that I am an organised person right now.

So As always, I did some meal prepping this weekend and came up with some new dishes.. looking back at the weekend, I am not sure how I got anything done considering I didn’t have any decent pain relief, but I did and I am one happy camper as all the vegetables and meats are cooked and good to go for the time ahead, and now I just gotta keep going and smile, smile, smile through the pain 🙂 I even managed to write most of this post over the weekend, so literally all I have to do this week is rest, drop off and pick up my son from the creche and then let him play and eat junk (yes, I am allowing him away with murder this week as I just do not have the energy to do it right).

Growing up, we never had (or I just do not remember having them) brussels sprouts. I don’t think my mother is very fond of them so I can understand why I have no memory of them on our plates. Listening to many other people talk about sprouts and their lack of interest in them always made me believe that I too would not or do not like them. How incredibly wrong was I? They are amazeballs. Sooo delicious if cooked in a certain way.

I did an experiment this weekend. I boiled one sprout to see if I liked it. I did not. I’m not a huge fan of cabbage and this little lonely sprout did nothing for me. I pan-fried one, it too wasn’t all too exciting. But OH MY GOD, roasting them was spot on. The roasting gave them a caramelised taste and they just melted in the mouth. But I decided they still needed a little something to raise them to a higher level, so I played with additional flavours. I added rich Greek honey (from my Father’s village in Corfu) and some aged balsamic vinegar and they were divine!

Brussels sprouts are just nearing the end of their season now. The shops have been full of them for a few months now and they are a really inexpensive vegetable. I got a 500 g bag for 39 cent , coupled with the additional ingredients, I came up with a side dish that will work alongside lots of this weeks dinners for very little money indeed.

Apparently brussels sprouts help reduce stress (Yay), lower cholesterol and improve digestion as well as many other benefits. I try to give us a good range of vegetables in our diet. Even if my little one tries it and doesn’t like it, I will re-introduce them again later as we all know, toddlers goes through phases of liking things.

Ok so here is my new favourite vegetable recipe, honey and balsamic roasted brussels sprouts. Hope you love them as much as I do.

HONEY AND BALSAMIC ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS

I made a big batch of these, which I already seem to have eaten half of, just standing over the warm roasting tin. But these are going to be fantastic on the side of many of our dinners this week, in particular with a burnt butter cauliflower puree and pasta.

• 500 g of brussels sprouts
• 1 tbsp of olive oil for cooking and 1 tbsp for drizzling
• a big pinch of flaked sea salt
• 1 heaped tsp of good honey
• 1 level tsp of good balsamic vinegar

THE HOW

Heat the oven to 200 C.

Cut the bottoms of the sprouts off and peel off the worn outer leaves of the sprouts. Cut the brussels sprouts in half. I actually cut only half of them in half as my son quite often gets upset if he food isn’t ‘whole’.

Put them in a bowl and pour over 1 tbsp of the oil and mix until all coated. Add the sprinkle of salt.

Pour them onto a baking tray lined with foil and drizzle with the remaining 1 tbsp of oil.

Pop into the oven for 20 minutes. Turning down the heat to 180 C half way through.

Take them out, give them a good stir (turning over some of them) and pop them back in for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and place in a bowl and drizzle over the honey and the balsamic and stir really well. And hey presto, your sprouts are ready to serve.