Holiday Sides: Tom Colicchio's Brussels Sprouts & Roasted Winter Squash
Plus, a giveaway!
One of my goals for 2025 is to cook more. I bake every day, sometimes multiple recipes. I load up my two dishwashers with mixing bowls, measuring cups (liquid only because you know I use a scale for the rest), and all the other random tools I employ to bake. I know how to cook but don’t do much of it. When the boys were little, there was always a counter full of pie, cake, cookies, bread and even melting containers of ice cream, but anything resembling dinner was a last minute rush to the table. In my defense as a parent, both of my boys are very good cooks as a result of having to learn how at an early age. Haha.
With the help of some of my cookbook friends, I have been cooking and vow to do even more in the new year. Tom Colicchio’s book, Why I Cook (affil. link), is full of delicious recipes that are really doable at home. He may run award-winning restaurants, but this book is for us home cooks. I dove straight into the Brussels Sprouts recipe that convinced the world they were a delicious veg and should be on every holiday table.
The Roasted Winter Squash with Bourbon Maple Syrup recipe was served to me by my friend Karen Suen-Cooper, who co-owns Mr. P’s Pantry and Place Card Co. in Chatham, NY with her husband, Martin. We had an exquisite meal together where she served this Roasted Squash as an Hors D’Oeuvres. It turns out to be incredibly easy to put together and so delicious that Charlie, my youngest son, had 3 servings. A true compliment to the cook. I asked Karen for the recipe and we ended up spending a charming winter day together in the kitchen preparing the squash.
The magic of this dish is the combination of several winter squash and the fabulous drizzle of their namesake Mr. P’s Pantry Bourbon Maple Syrup, which was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as one of her favorite holiday gifts this year. So, I need not try to convince you of how freakin’ amazing this syrup is, it has the queen’s stamp of approval!
Karen and Martin have generously partnered with me to share this recipe with my “Extras” subscribers and EVERYONE with a USA address is eligible for a GIVEAWAY, including a bottle of syrup and way more.* See below for full list of giveaway items and details to enter!
Extras Subscribers will find these recipes at the bottom of this post! Thank you for supporting my work.
Recent Mentions & Holiday Recipes
Sarah Copeland featured my rugelach in her 12 Days of Cookies series! Be sure to check out all the delicious cookies while there’s still time to bake them!
Do you remember Sunshine Raisin Biscuits? Susan Spungen shared my Raisin Biscuits recipe from Zoë Bakes Cookies and all the 1970s love for them is back!
KatieCouric.com featured my Holiday Sugar Cookies recipe!
Splendid Table featured my Basque-Style Bars.
Stephanie Hansen included my Coconut Macaroons in her 12 Days of Cookies!
Food52’s #f52cookbookclub featured my Bourbon Biscoff Brownies, which I developed after my friend, Stephanie March, an authority on all things bourbon, described them to me. They are simple brownies, doused in bourbon and dressed up in black tie!
Bebe Carminito (@champagneandcookies) and Steph (@awhiskandaspoon) selected Zoë Bakes Cookies as their Get Cooking Cookbook Club book for December!
Holiday DISCOUNT! Need a last-minute gift? My Extras newsletter is the gift that keeps giving, all year long. Right now you can upgrade or gift this newsletter for 20% off. Discount expires 12/24/24, so get it while you can.
Cinnamon Swirl Bread
This cinnamon swirl bread is a super tender, cinnamon spiced, perfectly balanced salted caramel treat for your holiday gatherings. It’s like the perfect cinnamon bun, just more fun. Great for Christmas morning or swap out the cream cheese icing with some ice cream as an afternoon dessert! No matter when you serve this stunning pan of cinnamon swirl bread it will bring joy!
Need a few savory sides or appetizers for your holiday gatherings? I have ideas!
Gougères piled high atop a cake stand make for lovely, poppable appetizers.
This tart can be loaded up with whatever you have lying around in your cupboards and fridge.
My easy focaccia is made with pizza dough and is always a hit. It’s also endlessly customizable.
We make this spicy spinach dip every Christmas Eve while we decorate our tree!
When you’re hosting, oven space is often a challenging feat of timing and choreography, so I “bake” these rosemary dinner rolls in the Crockpot.
And for those celebrating Chanukkah, here are a few of my favorites:
Sufganiyot or these Orange-Poppyseed mini bundt cakes or you could even go with these cake donuts with saffron glaze.
Potato Latkes topped with caviar, crème fraîche, lox, apple slices, applesauce, pomegranate seeds, pickled onions, or fresh herbs.
Tom Colicchio’s Why I Cook
I love Brussels Sprouts, I always have. I was an odd child and loaded up on the veggies at the holidays even more than the turkey or roast. If you are unsure about these baby cabbages, this is the recipe that will win you over. For anyone lucky enough to eat at one of Tom Colicchio’s restaurants, where he serves these bacon saturated-Brussels, you know what I speak of. Now we can all enjoy them from his new book, Why I Cook.
Colicchio’s new book is part cookbook, with his favorites and the ones that all of us fans have begged him to put to paper, but it is also a memoir. I admit that I took his recent TV fame for granted but hadn’t fully appreciated the journey it took him to get there. People watch cooking on TV and assume it is glamorous, but working in a professional kitchen is anything but. It is hard on the body, the mind and the soul, but those of us crazy enough to make it our form of expression LOVE it. Tom writes beautifully about this pain vs joy contradiction in his book. His path is unpredictable, heartwarming and at the end you understand why he is so crazy successful and talented. Hint: hard work, unwillingness to give up and a dash of luck.
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS!!! Tom was kind enough to offer his recipe for my “Extras” subscribers, and EVERYONE with a US address has a chance to win an awesome prize pack, including a copy of Tom’s book, a Tilit apron, a MEATER thermometer, Boon chili oil, and a bottle of Mr. P’s Pantry Bourbon Maple Syrup. Leave a comment below by 12/28 at 11:59 p.m. and we’ll randomly pick a winner shortly thereafter! US addresses only.
The Dish That Launched a Thousand Brussels Sprouts
From Tom: These days, Brussels sprouts are everywhere on restaurant menus. That’s a good thing. When deep-fried and tossed with fish sauce—how they invariably appear—they’re little bombs of flavor and texture. When we opened Craft, however, Brussels sprouts were a rarity on restaurant menus. No one wanted them. No one made them, at least not professionally. They were derided for their flavor, for their texture, for everything so much so that they were a cliché of what you didn’t want to eat. And then, at Craft, we started gently tossing them in rendered bacon fat and aromatics until their delicate flavor commingled with the richness of the bacon. People took notice and the little cruciferous orbs began to sell, becoming one of our most popular sides. Soon, they began to spread to other menus, where methods of preparing them grew wider and more varied. (I am not, by the way, taking sole credit for popularizing Brussels sprouts, but like Edison bulbs and Chilewich place mats, there was a hockey stick upward after Craft.) But this, the original preparation, is still one of my favorite recipes and on regular rotation at home.