Let’s face it, once September rolls around, there’s only one thing on everyone’s mind.

Well, one thing in addition to Strictly and whichever blow-the-budget Sunday night costume drama is currently doing the televisual rounds.  And that thing is Christmas.

The leaves are going a bit brown.  Sort of, ish.  Maybe, almost?  Dig out those opaques, it’s just about bearable to wear tights again in the humidity, school’s back in for the Autumn and before you know it the trick or treaters will have been and gone.

And so it was that this Sunday, I noticed two things.

Number one, John Lewis has not yet got the deccies out.  Come on JL, get with the programme!  I’ve been looking forward to bawling my eyes out at your Chrimbo ad for the last nine months, not to mention making imaginary lists in head of which of your delectable kitchen appliances I would like to be given as presents.  Lights, please!  And secondly, there are sprouts in the shops.

Yep, sprouts.  Sitting there on the shelf in Tesco basking in the barely-out-of August sunshine.  The dog days of summer have scarcely croaked out their last bark, and there they are, ripe and ready, grown in England and labelled with the hallmark of a fake farm invented by Tesco.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the yuletide season.  Don’t they always say it gets earlier and earlier every year?

So to cope with what I can only assume is a glut of brassicas, I have done the dirty work on these little balls of leafiness, so that you don’t have to.  I have researched on the interwebs, and I have found a grand total of, well, not very many recipes elevating the humble Brussels sprout to anything more than mere Christmas side dish status.

And yet, and yet.  After discovering the joy of frying sprouts with chestnuts for the Christmas dinner a few years back, I became convinced that there was more to the humble sprout than playing second fiddle to a nut roast.  And so I embarked upon what to me seemed like the most obvious place for a sprout; a stir fry.  It’s literally the only type of dish where members of the cabbage family are not only acceptable, but positively welcomed.  And so, without further ado, Single Mum Cooks: A very sprouty stir fry.

Ingredients

Sprouts

Spinach

Sunflower oil

Sesame oil

Soy sauce

Mushrooms

Spring onion

Onion

Garlic

Broccoli

Sunflower oil (for frying)

Method: 

1. Boil or steam the sprouts until “al dente” (can you use that word for sprouts?  I just did.  Deal with it, peeps).  When cooked, slice each one in half.
2. Heat the sunflower oil on a high heat in a large frying pan or wok and add the chopped onions and garlic.
3. Stir fry for a few seconds, then add the broccoli and sprouts.
4. Fry until softened, then add the mushrooms, spring onion, sesame oil and soy sauce.
5. When everything is suitably stir fried, add the spinach at the end and stir in until wilted.
6. Serve with a lovely fluffy rice.

Lo, behold ye a sprout stir fry.  It’s like all your Christmas nightmares dreams come at once, and before even the merest sniff of mulled wine has hit your local.  Just call me organised.

Don’t expect me to buying those presents anytime before 20th December though.