What fun to find out that there are other Brussels sprouts fans out there. A couple of weeks ago, I told about learning how to love sprouts after my discovery that they are tastier after a freezing. I heard from Jane Jennings in Brunswick and Karen Wulffraat in Camden, who wrote and said she liked them, too, but “it wasn’t always that way. Some vegetables you just grow into.”

Karen told an interesting story about frosting vegetables that I would like to share with you. She wrote:

“Your comment on a heavy frost having a positive effect on [Brussels sprouts’] flavor brought back an experience I had last year when I was visiting family on the east end of Long Island [N.Y.] where I grew up. Even though much of the farm land is now used for grapes (wine), sod, golfing, horses and houses, there remain some active family farms growing the traditional vegetables, one being cauliflower. I was sitting in the car at one of the numerous farmstands with my nephew, waiting for my sister and sister-in-law to purchase some vegetables for Thanksgiving. There had been a frost the night before, and parked right out in front was a big flatbed truck loaded with huge cauliflower. As I sat there for 10 minutes or so, I watched a good crowd of people coming and going, all with at least one cauliflower tucked under their arm. It was quite comical. Didn’t know the east end was so filled with cauliflower connoisseurs! It was only later that I learned from my brother about the first frost effect! Apparently a lot of locals are aware of the lore.”

Now I didn’t know about frosted cauliflower, but you can bet next year I am going to leave one out and see what it is like. Meanwhile, I had one more stalk of sprouts down cellar so I brought it up and snapped all the sprouts off, trimmed them up, and pondered them. Some had gotten a little mushy and I ended up cutting into them. I separated those from the whole ones, and have decided to try them according to a suggestion from Jane Jennings.

She observed that the Irish make a combination of potatoes and cabbage or kale called colcannon. She said, “I believe there is an English version named Bubble and Squeak. It’s basically onions and shredded cabbage sauteed in bacon fat. When the onion or cabbage is crisp-tender, mashed potatoes are added. Garnished with chopped scallions and crisp, crumbled bacon.” YUM! Jane writes, “I have made this for the old folks I cook for at the nursing home. One lovely old lady told me she likes my lumpy mashed potatoes. I’ll bet you could do the same using sliced Brussels sprouts in place of the cabbage.” I bet you could, too.

As it happens, I have known about good old Bubble and Squeak for quite some time because it is a fairly historic dish. It ends up being a lot of things as long as cabbage is in there somewhere. Cabbage and thinly sliced beef, cabbage and sausage, etc. But I had never given a thought to the potential with Brussels sprouts. I chopped up the sprouts that I had to cut into and cooked them up with sausage and onion.

That left me the whole ones, and I tried them with Karen’s recipe. She wrote that this recipe has “become a family tradition and favorite over the last 15-20 years,” originally from a November issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Now I had had a Brussels sprouts recipe with the other chestnuts in it but I didn’t like it as much as I think you are supposed to. This one with the crunchy water chestnuts is really nice.

Lemon Dilled Brussels Sprouts and Water Chestnuts

Serves 8

1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts

Water enough to barely cover sprouts

1/4 cup butter

1 tablespoon dried dill

Juice of half a lemon

1 8-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained

Bring water to a boil, then put in Brussels sprouts. Reduce the heat and cook 10-15 minutes until tender. Drain sprouts and, while they are still hot, add butter, dill, lemon juice and water chestnuts, and toss until well mixed.