We eat sprouts in season only. Those that you get in September are unpleasant. They should be small, tight and nutty. I think they definitely need a frost on them. I bought a bag of absolute horrors at M&S last week. Watery balls of squidgy sulphur. The best sprouts I've had this winter were those purple ones on stalks from Lidl. I like a bit of colour on the plate so I generally include carrot in my veg for a roast. A very nice combination in winter is carrots cut into little sticks steamed for five minutes, then chopped sweetheart cabbage added to the steamer for another seven or eight minutes. The organic ones from Waitrose or M&S are well worth the money. I'm not interested in inorganic cabbage. I'm a big fan of tenderstem spears and purple sprouting, but I won't buy those horrid, tasteless, watery green clouds of calabrese. Good Cornish cauliflowers are very nice and I always grab one of those Romanesco jobs if I ever see one. Parsnips are de rigeur in our house from Christmas onward. I grow my own, and they also need a frost. If you have excess parsnips you can cut them to cooking size and freeze them in bags without blanching for a good few weeks. It's a good idea to douse them in a bit of lemon juice to stop them from going brown.