Why I H*** Broccoli

I really don’t like broccoli. At all. I actively avoid buying it as a vegetable for our family.
There’s really only one reason why: it takes absolutely FOREVER to cut it up.

The thing is, I really don’t like the tough skin on the stalk. No matter how much you cook it, it’s still this hard, unchewable barrier on the outside of the yummy broccoli interior. In order to get the broccoli the way I like it, I cut off the end and peel the stalk.

This part is actually kind of fun. I’m one of those people who loves peeling off wallpaper, or scraping up paint, or anything else that involves that kind of removal of long strips of something.

Once you get past the bottom of the stalk, though, the fun stops. Gazillions of trees going everywhere with these deep indentations, also covered in thick yucky outer skin. I peel, cut, peel, cut, and before I know it, 15 minutes has gone by on ONE STALK OF BROCCOLI!

Organic broccoli was on sale at a local grocer this weekend. I know it’s good for us. I caved and bought some. And because I recently learned that to get maximum nutritional value out of broccoli you need to eat it raw or let it sit after it’s cut for at least 15 minutes (or 30? Not sure) to allow this certain really really good chemical to form, and because we want to eat it tomorrow night, I cut it up tonight. At some point, watching the time go by and my precious evening personal time vanishing, I started to cut corners. We’ll see if the result tomorrow is edible!

The recipe: bake/steam in a pyrex dish with water. Then cover & cook a bit more with a topping of pressed garlic, tamari and sesame oil. Yum! Okay, maybe worth the effort.

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