Cajun Baked Cauliflower

Welcome to summer, friends! It's time for me to once again brush the dust off the blog. Now that school is over I have time to cook.

Big news here at the Professor's Kitchen: we moved! So, I'm cooking in a new kitchen. It's bigger than my old one, which is great. I'm still sans dishwasher, but that's OK. We just had our first dinner guests over last night, so I finally have it all in order. I'll post some pictures soon.

Now, onto the new recipe.

Some of my readers will recall that I am not the biggest fan of cauliflower. I've been trying to find ways to cook it to highlight its good qualities. I found this recipe not long ago and it looked promising. I did some tweaking.

Notes: These have an excellent crunch. It's almost like you're eating fried cauliflower. If you wanted to make them as an appetizer, they would be delicious dipped in some warm marinara sauce. I made them as a side dish.

You can cut the seasoning to 1 teaspoon if you like it less spicy. I wish it had been more spicy! I might add hot sauce next time.

Here's a helpful tip which came from my own mistake. DON'T try to bread all the pieces at once. I got lazy and didn't feel like doing one at a time. Well, my breading got wet and then wouldn't stick to the cauliflower. So, be patient and just do a few at a time.

Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower
2 eggs
Splash of milk
3/4 cup of rice cereal (Rice Krispies, Rice Chex, etc.)
3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400. Cut the cauliflower into florets.

In one bowl, beat the eggs and milk together. In another bowl, crush the rice cereal. Whisk it together with bread crumbs, cheese, and seasoning.

Dip the florets a couple at a time into the egg/milk mixture. Shake off the excess egg and then roll the florets into the bread crumb mixture. Put the finished florets on a foiled-lined baking sheet. Repeat until all the florets are coated.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown and the cauliflower can be pierced with a fork. Enjoy!

Q.E.D.: Roasted Broccoli Flower Pasta with Pesto

You may have noticed that there is dearth of cauliflower recipes on this blog. There's a good reason for that, namely that I hate cauliflower.

I know, it's a failing.

There are two vegetables that I simply cannot get on board with: cauliflower and beets. You've never seen a beet recipe on this blog because I have only made one recipe with them in my life. To my palate, they have a kind of vinegar aftertaste that I just can't handle.

My dislike of cauliflower is slightly weirder. I think it looks like a brain.

This is not the only reason I don't eat it. It's very crunchy and somewhat bitter and there's something about that particular combination that I don't care for. But add to it that I feel like I'm munching on tiny brains -- well, you can see why I might avoid it.

But, as a grown human being and someone who loves cooking, I feel committed to trying things multiple times. Different preparations can make all the difference. I'm sure I'll try beets again sometime and in this recipe I gave the brain-liflower another go. It turned out very tasty.

Notes: It's been a few posts since we've done a Q.E.D meal. If your weeks are anything like mine, you need good food and you need it fast. Look no further, my friends!

The name of this recipe is not literal in that I did not use the actual hybrid vegetable broccoliflower to make it. I just used a combination of broccoli and cauliflower.

I roasted the veggies because I wanted the depth of flavor. If you really didn't want to turn your oven on, you could always just toss the veggies into the pasta water during the last few minutes of cooking time. It's no fuss and it gets you a one-pot meal. The two downsides to that method are losing the roasted flavor and losing some of the vitamin content of the veggies (water leeches some of the nutrients out of them).

Ingredients:
1 pound short cut pasta like medium-sized shells, orecchiette, or bowties
1 head of broccoli
1 head of cauliflower
2-3 tablespoons of prepared pesto sauce (I used my favorite brand from the grocery store)
Salt
Pepper
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Directions: Heat the oven to 425.

Chop the broccoli and cauliflower into bite-sized pieces. Put them on a baking sheet in one layer. Toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Roast them for 15-20 minutes until you can pierce the pieces with a fork, but they're still tender-crisp.

While the veggies are roasting, fill a stock pot with water and bring to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the directions, but short cut pastas usually take between 10-12 minutes to cook.

When the pasta finishes, drain it and return it to the pot. Add in the veggies and pesto. Stir to combine. Serve and enjoy!

BRAAAAIIINNNNNS

Rosemary Apple Roasted Chicken with Kale Cauliflower Mash

Julia Child once said that the test of a great cook is a good roasted chicken. I have never roasted a whole chicken before. If I am to be a good cook in the eyes of Julia, then I suppose it is time to pass that test.

Notes: I have never understood why people insist on stuffing the cavity of a chicken with onions or lemons. I honestly have never been able to taste them. Since people pair pork and apples together, why not apples and chicken? I thought it was good, though I wouldn't claim to be able to taste the apples.

There's no big secret to roasting a chicken. People think you have to tie it up with twine and brine it and such. I mean, if you did brine it, I'm sure it would be delicious, but there's no need to fuss. If you ask me, only four things are essential: salt, pepper, butter, and a rack. And by "rack" I mean something with holes in it that you can set down inside a roasting pan. I use one of my stainless steel cookie cooling racks. Again, think about how long people have been roasting meat -- long before Crate and Barrel was telling you that you needed a special pan. My biggest fear about whole chickens are the innards, but nowadays the giblets are all packaged together in an envelope and stuffed in the cavity. You just pull out the envelope and either toss it or use the giblets however you please.

For me the hardest part is carving the chicken. In my kitchen, the butchering starts after the cooking is over. Carving a bird just takes practice.

So I finally made a dish with cauliflower. There are very few foods I dislike and until tonite cauliflower was one of them. But mashed cauliflower was quite good. I did not originally puree the cauliflower and kale together, but I did it later. I forgot that cauliflower does not have the starch that potatoes do and so a mere whirl around the Kitchen Aid bowl wasn't going to cut it.

Ingredients:

For chicken:
1 4-5 lb chicken, giblets removed
1 tablespoon butter
3-4 whole sprigs of rosemary
1 apple quartered with the seeds removed
Salt
Pepper

For the mash:
1/2 bunch kale leaves, destemmed
1 head of cauliflower
4-5 sprigs fresh rosemary
1/4-1/2 cup of milk
2 tablespoons butter
Salt

Directions: Heat the oven to 400.

Allow the chicken to come to room temperature (approximately 30 minutes). Line a baking pan with foil (just for easier clean up) and set a rack down inside the pan. Set the chicken on the rack. Season with salt and pepper and rub the outside of the skin with the butter. Put the apples and rosemary in the cavity. Roast for 15 minutes per pound. The chicken will done when (a) a thermometer reads 165-170 in the breast, (b) the juices of the chicken come out clear, and (c) when the leg wiggles easily away from the body of the chicken. When it's done, let it rest for 15 minutes.

When the chicken has about 30 minutes of cooking time left, start the mash. Add a small amount of water to a skillet with a lid and bring it to a high simmer. Break the cauliflower up into florets and place them in the skillet. Put the lid on and steam them until fork tender (about 20-25 minutes). While the cauliflower is steaming, thinly slice the kale leaves and chop the rosemary. When the cauliflower is done, transfer it and the kale to a large bowl. Add in milk, butter, salt, and rosemary and puree with an immersion blender until smooth. Serve just like mashed potatoes.

Enjoy a roast chicken dinner any night of the week!