Eat Your Veggies Pt.1: Cauliflower!!!
Welcome to the new Eat Your Veggies Series with me, Hannah, your vegetarian friend ✌😜✌.
Ok, ok. I know what you're thinking... "WE GET IT HANNAH YOU LIKE VEGETABLES". You're right! You're right. I don't mean to keep beating the same ol' drum but let's face the facts. Most of us are getting older, no matter how hard we try to be young, wild and free. Hangovers occur more frequently and with more intensity (and weirdly after like 2 beers? Just me?). Sometimes our knees hurt after a particularly long run or we tweak our back playing sports. We can't eat whatever, whenever and suffer no consequences. So, let me present a suggestion. Let us treat ourselves nice sometimes. Sometimes that simply means eating lunch outside, or maybe sometimes it means drinking 6 too many beers with your friends because it brings you joy that transcends the physical... but sometimes that also could mean treating yourself to a homemade veggie dish. My mission is to increase everyone's veggie consumption on the basis that veggies are so yummy and make you feel invincible (and it's nice to mama Earth to eat more veggies and less meat). I know many of you love your veggies too and can attest to the value they add to your food life. So, each week (JK, just whenever I feel like it), I am going to do a little ode to a vegetable and suggest some good ways to prepare it, and if you don't like cooking, some good places to eat it. Up first is the ever popular CaULiFLowER <3.
First I want to get one thing out of the way. Cauliflower rice is gross and not good and really I do not recommend eating that. I love 99% of vegetables (huff off @celery) and I cannot make myself eat cauliflower rice. It tastes like farts and eliminates all of the good stuff about cooking cauli. If you love it, you do you, but I think it is a mean way that the anti-carb masses have decided to trick us into punishing ourselves. Rice tastes good and is good for you. Just eat rice. There are SO MANY better ways to eat cauliflower. Respect the veggie and do not rice it.
Onward we march. So, cauliflower is part of the cruciferous vegetable family, along with broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage... just think about which veggies sometimes smell stinky when you cook them, and they are most likely a cruciferous vegetable. These veggies tend to be a bit bitter (especially raw), and very high in fiber. Sounds delicious, huh?
BUT THEY ARE!!! A little roast and the bitterness morphs into a slight sweetness. I'm a big fan of cooking things very simply, so my favorite thing to do with cauliflower is just give it a good roast. Maybe y'all are all old cooking pros but, for those of you who find roasting a veggie intimidating, I'll give a quick how-to.
Roast a Cauliflower (or any veggie!):
Turn your oven the 425 and get out a baking sheet. If it is not a non-stick tray, give it a quick spray of Pam or a rub down with some oil ;)
Break down the cauliflower. Put it on your cutting board with the stem facing up and pull off any leaves that are still on there. Compost them (don't compost? we'll get to that). Then, using a large chef's knife, cut straight through the stem, cutting the cauliflower in half. This will reveal all the little florets (lil trees!). You can easily break those off with your hands. I like to halve the florets (with knife, long-ways) so I can put the flat side down on the pan and get a good browning on it. (Note: for one person, half a head of cauliflower is sufficient if you don't want fiber-induced stomach cramps)
Put all your florets in a bowl with a big swig of olive oil (~2 Tablespoons), and a hearty pinch of kosher or sea salt (~1tsp). Toss to coat the florets in the oil and salt. Optionally you can add a couple tablespoons of vinegar (red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, rice wine vinegar) which adds a nice contrasting acidity to the roast and I read in a magazine once it is an insider tip for roasting veggies to use vinegar... idk w/e.
Arrange the florets on the pan with cut side down. Make sure the florets are not touching. If they are piled up, they will steam as they release moisture. We are going for a nice roasting and browning so everyone needs a little bit of space on the pan.
Add any other seasonings you may desire, then stick the pan in the oven.
Roast for ~25 minutes. You can peak and see if the heads and edges are starting to brown. Give them time to brown :)
Enjoy your homemade veggie with your fave sauce!! I feel like cruciferous veggies lend well to something acidic or tangy like mustard :) But I have eaten every condiment on roasted cauli and anything you love will be delicious!! Or no sauce at all is delish :)
Not up for roasting your own?? Here are some good cauliflower dishes in Austin:
True Food Kitchen Roasted Cauliflower
Whole Foods Buffalo Cauliflower(at hot bar)
Austin Daily Press Caul Me Torta
Better Half Cauliflower Tots
BONUS: For Houstonites-- Fadi's or Aladdin fried cauliflower :).
More advanced chef? YAS YOU GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF - here are a couple good recipes:
Parmesan Roasted Caulifower (sub parmesan for white miso if you're not a dairy eater)
Note on composting: As a veggie chef, it is a great idea to keep a composting bucket AND it is SO easy!! Get a paint bucket with a lid, put a brown paper bag in it. Put it under your sink. Whenever you have veggie food waste (no dairy or meat), plop it in the bucket and reseal it. When it gets full, take it to the Mueller Farmer's Market on Sunday morning. They have a station in the hangar where you can drop off compost.
Eat your veggies :)))).
Callie Flower signing off!
