As a child my mother would utter the words brussel sprouts and a sense of horror would take me over. What I knew of as brussel sprouts then (boiled to death then topped with butter - ewe) and how I think of them now are vastly different.

This is my new favorite brussel sprout recipe. It. Is. Awesome.

I cannot take credit for developing the sauce as I found the original recipe at Food52. Upon reading it I knew it would be WONDERFUL. I did have one worry though. I've been trying to NOT deep fry things (I've been losing weight thank you very much!) So I decided to bake them.

Here's what I did.

Inspired by the fried version over at Food52.

Serves 4-6

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Ingredients:

1lb of brussel sprouts

1 red bell pepper cut into long toothpick slices

olive oil

large flake kosher salt

Spicy sauce:

1/2 Tablespoon Sriracha hot sauce

1.5 Tablespoons of honey, heated

juice of 1/2 a lime

zest for half a lime

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut the bottom hard portion off of the brussel sprouts.

Cut the sprout in half lengthwise and if large cut into quarters. I like to cut the hard center of the sprout out as well. (You don't HAVE to.) I then peeled the leaves to the heart and I left the heart in tact, tossing all together in a large bowl. This takes a while. You may want to wait to turn the oven on until you're halfway through preparing the sprouts.

Add the red pepper slices. I drizzled the olive oil, a little at a time, tossing the bowl contents until everything has a thin coating. I leaned on the side of less than more as you can see in the photo to the right. They aren't drenched. There was no olive oil running off the brussel sprouts into the jelly road pan. Sprinkle the kosher salt flakes over the pan.

Bake for 15 minutes. If you bake them longer then will dry out and crisp up, but I liked them at the 15 minute mark.

Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Note: I heated my honey so that it was runny and it mixed together easier.

Once the sprouts are cooked, pour them into a large bowl. Pour the sauce over them, a little at a time and serve. Be prepared to hear yummy noises from around the table.

Today as I began to write this post, I read the comments on the post at Food52 and in the comments she posted this link for another version of the baked idea from

Brooklyn Bread Press.

At some point I'll try the deep fried version... but my baked version is awesome!

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