A rallying call to all Brussels Sprouts lovers out there......

It's that time of year when the Brussels Sprout starts to take centre stage in the vegetable stalls of Britain. I feel a hint of guilt about the humble sprout. As a child, I hated them. I would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid eating them. I perfected the art of hiding the sprout in one cheek whilst consuming the rest of the meal. At the end, I would leave the table and run with one bulging cheek like a hamster up to the top of the house where I would retrieve the intact sprout and throw it out of the window. I can remember watching the sprout bounce down the slates of the roof before falling three stories down into the garden.

Having learned to love sprouts and even more surprisingly found that Freddie loves them too, it is time to pay them back. So when I read a news story earlier this year, I thought it was time the Great Big Veg Challenge started to campaign. But I really need all your help in this. Let me tell you first the story that grabbed our attention:
Royal Navy Commanding Officer Wayne Keble OBE is in charge of the illustrious HMS Bulwark. He was allegedly heard to say that sprouts were the 'devil's vegetable' and should be banned from the Captain's table. Read one version of the full story here. Looking at the picture of the Commanding Officer in that newspaper article, he seems a reasonable man, a friendly face - not one that you would associate with an irrational fear of sprouts.
I imagine it might be difficult for sprouts to sue for libel. And they are frequently the target of negative press. A few years back they were voted in a survey Britain's most hated vegetable. (Apparently they have regained some ground coming second to the aubergine this year).
So what can we all do? Well, we've thought of two things:
1.We have started a petition to encourage Commanding Officer Wayne Keble to learn to enjoy sprouts. We'd love you to sign this petition online. This is what you would commit to:
"We the undersigned, call on Commanding Officer Wayne Keble OBE, to put aside his hatred of Brussels Sprouts and to lead his men and women by example, sampling delicious recipes and dishes that demonstrate the delectable taste of sprouts.
We the undersigned will also commit to supply him and his Royal Navy catering team with irresistible sprout recipes to help him on this culinary voyage of discovery".

2. And the second thing I would like you to do is to join me in putting together the most imaginative and delicious selection of your Brussels Sprouts recipes. If you are a blogger, would you agree to one day where you celebrate the sprout and feature your favourite recipe dedicated to Commanding Offiver Wayne Keble? No negative postings here please - just an attempt to encourage all sproutophobes. If you are interested in this - please leave me a comment or email me.

Black Garlic and Mushroom Tartlets

"Mum's bought slugs!"

I hadn't of course, but I concede my latest vegetable discovery is a dead ringer for the Arion Ater lurking under the hostas in our garden. One of the earliest things we learnt in our Great Big Veg Challenge was to be brave, not to be frightened of the vegetable unknown. We have tried everything from seaweed, cacti and nettles to bitter gourd and now Black Garlic. Alex discovered them on a stall at MasterChef Live in London's Olympia. According to the packet, black garlic is aged white garlic. The packaging boasts the only ingredients are regular garlic, heat, humidity and time. So we bought some and brought them home.

The little black cloves have the texture of a piece of chewy liquorice. They taste of fermented wine, intense sweet garlic, a touch of liquorice and the bizarre thing is although you are eating whole cloves of garlic, your breath doesn't stink. And in our house, this is a critical issue. My husband has a deep-seated loathing of garlic. His hatred of the stinking-rose extends to cooking smells and particuarly garlicky-breathe. This is a shame, because neither Freddie or Alex have inherited the garlic-hating gene. In fact, when Freddie was a toddler we called him dough-boy in honour of his ability to polish off a plate of Pizza Express garlic dough-balls in record time.

So as you can imagine, the prospect of being able to introduce garlic into family-mealtime without causing a rift is very welcome. I baked some Mushroom and Black Garlic Tartlets. (Or if you like Freddie's alternative name, Tarte au Slug). Freddie has learnt to enjoy mushrooms largely because of his friend Bertie's Superb Mushroom Pasta Sauce. (Click HERE to find the recipe - I assure you it can turn round the most ardent mushroom-haters.) Now 'He Who Hates Garlic' has decided that Black Garlic is acceptable. If any of you know any more about black garlic please let me know. I have a pot in the fridge and I need more recipes.

Mushroom and Black Garlic Tartlets

350g of sliced mushrooms

1 tbsp of olive oil

5 shallot onions peeled and very finely chopped

2 tbsp of finely chopped black garlic

375g of shortcrust pastry ready rolled

3 eggs, beaten

1 egg yolk, beaten

150 ml of milk

Some Parmegiano Cheese to grate over the tartlets

1. Lightly saute mushrooms and shallots in oil for 5 minutes until softened.

2. Season and add the chopped black garlic - saute for a further 3 minutes

3. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the milk and season with salt and pepper

4. Cut out the ready rolled pastry into circles big enough to line the mini-tartlet cases. ( Make sure they are lightly oiled before so the tarts don't stick)

5. Line the pastry cases equally and evenly with the mushroom, black garlic and shallot onions.

6. Pour over the egg and milk mixture.

7. Shave some parmegiano cheese over the top of each tartlet

8. Bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 mins at 200C

Serve hot or cold

Breathe liberally on friends and neighbours afterwards without fear of knocking them out with garlic breathe.

Butternut Squash Cannelloni

I think the roadworks a few yards from me are beginning to influence my subconscious. In the next street they are laying gigantic striped-plastic tubes underground. They are big enough for a large man to climb through. At night the place becomes one huge theme park for the millions of London rats who raid our bins. They can now combine an evening's top-class scavenging with a tubular ride. I find myself watching the workmen for long periods of time, mesmerised as they thread these enormous tubes through a hole in the ground. Then I walked to the supermarket.. Wheeling my trolley past the pasta shelves I was drawn towards the cannelloni.

And this is the end result - Butternut Squash and Puy Lentil Cannelloni. If there are any leftovers, and I suspect there won't be, I will deprive the rats and take it over to the workmen in celebration of their tubular engineering.

Butternut Squash Cannelloni

2 medium onions very finely chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp smoked paprika
half a teaspoon of cinnamon
Half a teaspoon of mixed herbs
500 gr butternut squash, peeled and cut into half inch cubes
250ml vegetable stock or bouillon
100g of rinsed puy lentils
200g tomato puree double concentrate
400g tinned chopped tomatoes

For the cheese sauce;
25g plain flour sifted
25g butter
575ml milk
100g mature cheddar cheese, grated
20g of parmegiano cheese, finely grated
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the oil, and soften the finely chopped onion and crushed garlic for 5 minutes with the smoked paprika, cinnamon and mixed herbs , stirring all the time.
2. Add the small-cubed butternut squash and stir occasionally for 8 minutes on a medium heat, making sure it doesn't stick. they should soften and be well coated with the onion spice mixture.

3. Add the vegetable stock and lentils and bring to the boil. Then turn down the heat and allow to simmer on a low heat with the lid on for 15 minutes.

4. Stir in the tomato paste and tinned chopped tomatoes over a medium heat for a further four minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Stuff the cannelloni tunbes with the butternut squash mixture - using a teaspoon to make sure they are properly filled.Lay them out cheek by jowl in a rectangular oven dish. Pour over the leftover butternut squash mixture evenly.

To make the cheese sauce;
1.Melt the butter in a pan on a low heat
2. Stir in the flour and keep stirring until it forms a smooth paste.
3. Add the milk and whisk constantly till the sauce thickens.
4. Allow the sauce to boil for a minute, stirring constantly

5. Add the grated cheddar cheese and stir in on a low heat until it is smooth and melted. If you have any lumps you can always push the sauce through a sieve.

6. Pour the cheese sauce evenly over the butternut squash canneloni, sprinkle over the finely grated parmeggiano cheese and finely chopped basil leaves.

Cook in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes at 180C.

I had a lovely email from another blogger - Jennifer Johnson in the USA who works with student nurses. I was intrigued by her top tips for making a drive-thru meal more healthy - and because i am a great believer in changing eating habits by altering the everyday things we do - here they are. If any of you have anything you want to share with me - please do let me know!

Locusts and butternut squash soup...all in a day.

The Great Big Veg Challenge has been asleep online for a few months...as I recovered from a back injury. I have returned ashamed to find weeds in the garden in the form of Bloog Spam. Freddie and I have weeded the garden, turned over the soil and are back to share our vegetable-eating adventures with all of you who are kind enough to visit and read. Thank you!

To celebrate and get back into the right frame of mind to be adventurous we went to the new Darwin centre in the Natural History Museum. If you are ever in London, this is the most amazing place, recently opened by Prince William to house many millions of natural history specimens.

(Picture from Natural History Museum site)
They have opened the Attenborough Studio, a space-age space where you can sit and listen to scientists share their enthusiasm. The events are all broadcast live online so at 1230 today if you had logged on to the museum site you might have caught sight of me biting into a (dead) locusts, egged on by Freddie. This was the Edible Insects lecture with scientist and insect - eating enthusiast Stuart Hine. "Is this as bad as eating celeriac?"he whispered as I sat back down. Well, Stuart had kindly placed the fried locust into a rocket and marie rose sauce sandwich which made the prized locust seem more like a crunchy prawn. We have just got home and are preparing to eat a more conventional meal and share the recipe with you all. And its a soup that Freddie and Alex love. No locusts required. Oh - and because we need to get back to old habits - this soup gets a 10 out of 10 from the former Veggie-phobe.

Smoky Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup

Half a butternut squash ( around 700g)
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 medium peeled potato
olive oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed
5 carrots diced
1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock
3 tbsp of creme fraiche to serve
1 tsp of smoked paprika
salt and ground pepper to season

preheat oven to 180 c (350F)
Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds
Rub a little olive oil on the flesh and place the squash flesh-down on a baking tray with a little rosemary underneath. This adds the most delicious flavour to the squash. Bake for 40 mins in the oven. when ready, scoop out all the baked flesh. Put aside the rosemary.

Saute onion, garlic,diced potato, diced carrot in a pan with a little olive oil and the paprika. When the onions are softened and translucent. (takes about 4 mins)

When they are soft and ready - add the butternut squash flesh, the stock and
bring to the boil, stirring all the time. When it reaches boiling point, turn the heat right down and simmer gently for 20 mins.

Remove from the hob, stir in the creme fraiche and blend the soup in a processor or with a hand blender....

(No locusts required)

So what's weirdest food you have ever eaten?

Until we have learned to taste....

"Until we have learned to explore, our tastes are so limited, our experience is so narrow, that we can make no valid comparisons, can found no true judgements. So it is with food. We must learn to eat first." (The Robert Carrier Cookbook)

Forgive me for being such an unreliable blogger over the past month. I have been recovering from a back problem. Due to the combined magic of painkillers and an osteopath I am slowly getting better and returning to normal life. And back to blogging!

I haven't ventured outside much but I couldn't resist the invitation to be a judge for the Great Taste Awards at the Real Food Festival in London. Having spent 18 months of our lives tasting an entire alphabet of vegetables, Freddie and I have learnt to explore tastes. But until you have had to taste 10 different flavoured sausages, 9 boozy ice creams, 8 sloe gins, 7 chocolates with chilli, 6 gluten-free cakes, 5 fruit jams, 4 savoury biscuits, 3 hot puddings, 2 fine butters and 1 noble anchovy you haven't really earned the title of taster. On my table was a wondeful lady from Devon, a farmers wife and an experienced Womens Institute judge known as Ruth Maile. She taught me how to scrape back the butter and see whether it is well blended, to think about the balance of flavours in a spoonful of jam, and to consider the crispness of a savoury biscuit. I left feeling as if I had been through the equivalent of an aerobics exercise for the palate. On the final day of judging I took Freddie with me and we were invited to sit on the Supreme Table.

This table receives all the recommendations from the other judging tables for the coveted gold awards. You don't know what products you will be sampling. So he was a little nervous. Until the plates of chocolate started to arrive, lining up on our table, waiting for a second opinion. He turned to me and said,"This is my idea of a brilliant job - can I be a chocolate taster?" And on our table was just that - an experienced chocoatier Marc Demarquette who encouraged this fledgling chocolatier to put aside his pocket money chocolate palate and learn to identify the taste of a really good quality cocoa bean.

Learning to explore food, learning to taste, Richard Carrier was right. Until we have done that we can't make valid judgements. Children should be given classes in tasting and exploring food. Any of you have any inspiring ideas for encouraging children to widen their taste horizons?