Terrifying.

Today's project came via the idea jar, "Make something you are terrified of."

I wasn't feeling too brave today, so I decided to interpret this as, "Cook something with an ingredient you're terrified of messing up."

For me, this is Brussels Sprouts.

Terrifying, right?

In my 24 years, I've had two kinds of brussels sprouts; life-changing-melt-in-your-mouth-amazing, and horrible-awful-no-good-very-bad-tastes-like-fire. So naturally, I am terrified of making the latter. But, since I live in trendy Portlandia, and brussels sprouts were deemed one of the 'trendiest' vegetables of 2012 by Eating Well magazine, I need to master the BS before I get excommunicated.

I found a recipe from my favorite iPhone App for cooking (How to Cook Everything) that seemed easy enough, and I embarked on my terrifying cooking adventure.

The recipe said to 'trim and half' the sprouts. I'm guessing this is what it meant:

AHHHHHH!!

I heated a pan with olive oil, then put the BS cut-side-down. After a minute or so, I tossed them with some garlic, salt and pepper. Then put it into a 450-degree oven. I gave them a quick toss every 5 minutes until they cooked for about 30 minutes.

I wasn't exactly sure if my pans are oven-safe.
Another terrifying part of this process.

They came out like this:

My first thought? Damn.

At this point, I was scared shitless. Basically, I thought I burned them, and made the horrible-awful-no-good-very-bad-tastes-like-fire version of brussels sprouts. I decided to keep going, just in case and tossed them with a splash of balsamic vinegar.

They were a part of Ben and I's monthly 'special' dinner. We always try to do something special for the 15th of the month to celebrate the 'little anniversaries' since we got married in October. This month marked 3 months. Feels so weird starting over on the anniversaries, especially since we've been dating officially for about 9.5 years...

Here was the dinner:

I also made steak--something I'm terrified of touching.
Overall, this was a terrifying dinner.

And you know what? The brussels sprouts were freakin' awesome. Seriously. I could have had an entire plate of them. They were amazing.

As I was eating dinner tonight, I realized something about this project; this is just as much about creating things as it is about getting me out of my comfort zone. I have become so good at staying within the brackets of 'what I'm good at' that I have rarely stepped outside it. I've noticed this especially since graduating in 2009. It's almost like I was constantly forced to do things that fell outside of the realm of what I was good at while I was in school, that I instantly rebelled and became complacent in where I was once I graduated. Maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but you get the gist.

So tonight, I made brussels sprouts. I didn't change the world. I didn't solve any major problem. I didn't even necessarily do anything difficult. But, I did something that I wouldn't have done last month. And, for what it's worth, it felt good. It felt good because I succeeded.

Through this project, I guarantee I'm going to take a risk and epically fail. Somehow, I need to learn how to be OK with that, and not be afraid of how it turns out. I put a few ideas in my idea jar tonight of things that I would like to improve on, but are typically outside my brackets of what I'm good add. Stay tuned.

Thanks all, have a great week.