Where was I?

I kind of suck at taking pictures of my food. Last night while I was making dinner I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure if it would work out, and I didn’t want to document a failed meal, so I held off. I could have taken a picture after I had tried it and realized that it was delicious, but by then I was shoulder-deep in my bowl, and not getting up until I was a member of the Clean Plate Club. And what was this wonderful meal, you ask? Another alternative to pasta! I’ve done the spaghetti squash thing, and it’s good (well…it’s ok), but this was way better. It all started because I wanted to serve brussels sprouts at Christmas (which we did, with great success). A couple of days before the big event I went to the store with my parents, and because the brussels sprouts bin looked almost-empty we bought them all. We literally emptied the bin, and another brussels sprouts-lover came over and high fived us because he was excited to see people who loved them as much as he does, and asked for my recipe, which was sort of awesome (fortunately, he didn’t want to buy any himself. If he had he probably would have been upset). The thing is though, that an almost-empty giant bin can still contain a whole lot of brussels sprouts, and we wound up with All The Brussels Sprouts In America. We cooked roughly 1/5 of our supply on Christmas, and then they just sat in the crisper. And sat. And sat, until last night, when I decided to take matters into my own hands. A quick internet sweep revealed a recipe for shredded brussels sprouts with lemon (I’m not linking to it because it was just my inspiration, I didn’t follow a recipe), which sounded totally edible, and like a fun change from my (delicious) favorite way of preparing brussels sprouts with bacon and apples. The actual shredding process was challenging, since I wasn’t 100% sure how to best do it, but I just fed them into the food processor that I had set up with the whirling flat blade of death (shoot, that isn’t descriptive enough. It’s a big, flat blade with a sharp slit in the top, and it fits like a lid, instead of sitting at the bottom of the food processor). It was slightly inefficient, since I could only shred four at a time, but it got the job done, and in between shreddings I made rabbit meatballs. The meatballs weren’t part of my original vision, but my mom requested some kind of animal protein, so I defrosted the rabbit the night before, and I haven’t used rabbit for anything other than meatballs. I still wasn’t picturing this meal as a pasta alternative, but I don’t know how to finish cooking meatballs without putting them in sauce (you brown them, and then you plop them into the tomato sauce to cook the rest of the way, right? They aren’t fully cooked after being browned?). My ignorance led to a delicious innovation though, so it totally worked out for the best. I wilted the brussels sprouts shreds in a pan with some water, salt, and pepper, and then when they were a pretty, bright green I liberally doused them with lemon juice, took them off heat, sauced them, and served it up. Everyone was hungry by this point, and while there were people who questioned my judgement, and thought we should at least have bread (even though there wasn’t any in the house), or cook just a little pasta to go with it (never! I was out to prove a point by then!), their doubts were extinguished with their first bite. It was awesome. Crunchy, flavorful, filling, but not heavy, dare I say the perfect healthy alternative to traditional spaghetti and meatballs (rabbit is way leaner (and better for the environment!) than beef, cruciferous vegetables instead of refined flour pasta)? Don’t get me wrong- I love carbs. So hard. But pasta…can be a little boring. It’s quick and easy, but it doesn’t usually make for an exciting meal (and my sister says it’s equivalent to eating a bowl of ice cream for dinner. Given the choice, I’d rather go for the real ice cream). So will I never eat pasta again? No way. Am I still excited about my new-found vessel for tomato sauce, and companion to meatballs? Heck yes. 🙂