Truly, lately I’ve had cauliflower on the brain. This has created somewhat of an obsession with this little-used-in-my-house veggie. Let me tell you how it all started…
A couple of weeks ago I came across a recipe for a curried-cashew cauliflower dish. The obsession begins…
I haven’t made this recipe yet because I keep forgetting to buy cashews and/or cashew butter – typical, right?! But this recipe sits atop my desk reminding me of how delicious it looks and how much I want to make it.
Then I bought a head of cauliflower -see, I remembered that ingredient.
Now, this part might not sound strange – buying the cauliflower – but I truly don’t think about cauliflower on a regular basis. It’s not a typical item on my shopping list. In fact, I think I’ve probably only bought it in the past to put on veggie dip platters.
Last weekend, after I realized I had forgotten the cashew butter and cashews, I decided to dice half the head of cauliflower and add it to my bean recipe. I really liked the addition of the diced cauliflower to the dish. Though not a requirement, it gave the beans a little tasty extra.
This weekend, again realizing I didn’t have the cashew butter or cashews, and looking through my vegetable drawer to see what needed to be used, I saw the other half of the cauliflower head, 1 red pepper and 3 zucchinis.
Ahhh, what do do, what to do?
Whenever this question comes up with veggies I need to use before they spoil, my go-to is roasting them.
On top of the curried-cashew cauliflower recipe that I still need to make, I had also seen a roasted vegetable recipe that utilized mustard. Not sure where I saw it, but the concept stuck in my brain.
Being the adventurous type, I decided to try using mustard in a mixture to coat the cauliflower before roasting. For the pepper and zucchini I just drizzled olive oil on giving them a dash of salt and pepper too. I didn’t want to coat them too in case the mustard mix didn’t really work out.
Here’s the recipe I used to coat the cauliflower:
Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower – though I only have 1/2 a head, I think there would be more than enough made in this recipe to coat a full head
- juice from one lemon – or I used about 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons spicy brown mustard – this is the mustard type I had, though I think any even yellow would work
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- pepper to taste
- 1 Tablespoons nutritional yeast – added for just that fun extra, but if you don’t have any I think it would be fine to leave out
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut the cauliflower into approx. bite size pieces.
3. Whisk all other ingredients together.
4. Toss in the cauliflower and mix to coat.
5. Spread the cauliflower out on a baking sheet.
6. Bake for approximately 40 minutes – checking and turning the veggies 1/2 way through.
The verdict: I could’ve eaten all the cauliflower myself they were that yummy. I would have, but that might not have gone over so well with Pops.
The cauliflower had just the right bit of “tang” to it – it was rather addicting actually.
This will now be a regularly made recipe in our house! And one I’ll be using at our summertime dinner parties. I regularly cook the veggies on the bar-b-que and now, I’m going to give it a go cooking the cauliflower with this coating there too – I’ll keep you posted on that.
So, now a vegetable that was once not much thought about except as a dipping veggie or one that appeared in Indian curry dishes has become my new obsession.
I guess there are worse things to be obsessed about, right?!
Happy Meatless Monday everyone!
