New Ingredients on the [Chopping] Block

Above: My leftover yummy crispy-charred cheesy baby brussel sprouts. They were delicious cold the next day in a salad too!
Today I want to share with you two items that have recently found their way into my kitchen that I had never considered using in my cooking repertoire before now. The first is a pantry item, tomato paste. Tomato paste is essentially tomatoes that have been cooked for hours until super tender, then strained and reduced to a rich concentrate usually packaged in a tube, according to epicurious.com. Whenever I saw tomato paste on an ingredient list, I simply skipped it because I imagined the lonely tube languishing on my refrigerator shelf after it performed its one-hit wonder. However, Food Junta's blog post on simple tomato sauce as part of their back-to-basics boot camp series convinced me otherwise. Their "recipe" for tomato sauce (really more like guidelines anyways) is so straightforward and simple it will make you wonder why you've been buying those over-priced, sodium-packed jars of pre-packaged sauce for so long. Tomato paste is a suggested ingredient to pump up the flavor, and it truly does heighten the tomato flavor in the sauce. Pasta cooked with tomato sauce with some freshly-ground parmesan, a pinch of cracked black pepper and a small squirt of lemon is a divine and easy dish. You can find their guidelines at www.foodjunta.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/boot-camp-tomato-sauce/

The other ingredient that I had been neglecting for so long is more or less universally disliked: the brussel sprout. Memories from childhood attempting to pass off those yucky little green cabbages to some other unsuspecting kid's plate before they noticed was a pastime at the Christmas kids' table. But Heidi Montag of 101 Cookbooks convinced me to give them a second chance with her recipe for Golden-Crusted Brussel Sprouts, in which the brussel sprouts are crisped in a hot pan and sprinkled with cheese at the end. The preparation completely transforms these usually unsavory little morsels into toasted, cheesy gems. Trader Joes sells conveniently packaged baby brussel sprouts which are extremely easy to work with. I really suggest trying this one out despite any unpleasant past you may have with brussel sprouts. Here's the website www.101coobooks.com/archives/golden-crusted-brussel-sprouts-recipe.html