Tessie does it again! On paper, her recipe looks odd, and in the saucepan, it looks even odder…
But these were delicious! What an interesting and flavoursome way of cooking yer sprouts!
At first, I wasn’t sure whether I had understood the recipe correctly. Put the cream cheese in the water with the sprouts and all the other bits except the cheese for the topping?
Would the cream cheese melt? Could it melt? But then I remembered Pearl Bailey’s brilliant way of cooking corn, with milk in the water, so I figured let’s try it.
Tessie’s Slimming Cookbook really is a remarkable thing. I’ve had it on my shelf for YEARS. It was a gift from two talented film-maker friends of mine who live in Cardiff. Suzanne Phillips and Sarah Broughton. They are the type of people I just want to move in with and soak up their creative energy like a VAMPIRE.
Sarah has recently published a fabulous book about Anna Kashfi called Brando’s Bride It is soooooooooo good, highly recommended and very special to me as I can remember many lovely chats with Sarah when this was just the kernel of an idea. Now look, it exists!
Plus, the Godfather cocktail will be coming soon as a lockdown Quarantini Time video demonstration. Whoopeeeeeee!
When I told Mr R I was writing a blog post about Tessie O’Shea he said, “I knew her brother Rick.” Dear oh dear oh dear. (Insert bullet ricochet sound effect here.)
I made these brussels sprouts AGES ago and it’s no longer brussels sprouts season here in the UK, but I’m guessing it is the season for them somewhere in the world, so here’s Tessie’s mad, but good, recipe.
That Tessie cookbook is what gave the world that awful frankfurter salad I made however many years ago. OH, Tessie!
Haha – I’d forgotten about that, you were a GOOD SPORT!