The Perfect Side: Roasted Cauliflower

Until several months ago, cauliflower was one of those vegetables that just was. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either. It always seemed to make appearances at the snack table at some boring conference as part of the crudite platter. Meh. Although occasionally, it would make a delicious appearance in Aloo Gobi, an aromatic Indian dish of cauliflower and potato or simply steamed with a boatful of cheddary cheese sauce on the side. But outside of that limited repertoire, I wasn't really that friendly with the crucifer.

But then several months ago, I stumbled upon a Martha Stewart Food magazine recipe for roasted cauliflower. Finding this recipe was like a relevation. The skies opened and angels sang. Who would have thought to roast cauliflower? Brilliant.

I like roasting vegetables primarily because it is very easy to do and also it brings out flavours other cooking methods can't. In this case, roasting cauliflower results in a beautifully caramelized and sweet side dish. The inclusion of smoked paprika adds some depth to the crucifer's mild flavour.

The best part of this recipe is it takes no time to make it. Just need to break the cauliflower down into florets and it's good to go.

Additionally, I think this would make a superb cream of cauliflower soup. I will have to try it one day and post back if it works out...


Roasted Cauliflower
Adapted from Martha Stewart Food



1 head cauliflower
1 tbsp olive oil
smoked paprika
salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Meanwhile wash & dissemble cauliflower into florets.
3. Toss with olive oil. Season with salt & pepper & a pinch (say 1/4 tsp) of smoked paprika. Spread florets out onto two large baking sheets.
4. Roast in oven for at least 25 mins or until slightly bronzed and caramelized.
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Pear & Celery Soup

It's been a tough week....

I had intended to post yesterday afternoon after basking in the simple pleasure of a luxurious, lazy long weekend sleep-in followed by a sweet, luscious breakfast to start the day. Unfortunately, the wildly delicious pear and ginger clafouti I had planned to share with my husband (and with you) was an utter flop. Disaster. Ugly, soggy, and barely edible (In the end, we did eat it. My husband managed a half-hearted, "It's good" as he choked down bites.)

But it started out as a simple wish: A sweet & simple breakfast for my husband on our last long weekend of the summer. Pears are in abundance right now and boy, are they good this year. I had peeled and sliced beautiful Bartlett pears the night before as a time saving measure, hoping I could quickly run down stairs, throw the eggs, milk & flour together, add the pears and bake it while my husband slept. The goal was to gently wake him with the fragrant smells of summer-time pears baking in the oven to convince him to start the day. But alas, that would not be the case. The batter was far too runny and thin & when I pulled the pears out of the fridge, they had wept quite abit in the bowl overnight. The result was a runny, unset clafouti even after ninety minutes of baking.

Occasionally, accidents do happen. Next steps, what to do with all those gorgeous pears that are in-season now?

For dinner tonight, we decided we would start with a pear and celery soup. We needed to use up those lovely pears sitting on our kitchen counter and I needed to get back on the horse again. This recipe was decidedly more successful than yesterday's. It's creamy, flavourful with just a hint of sweetness without the calories. Delicious. Unfortunately, the photo was not meant to be. I hope you can use your imagination and still try out this soup! Bon Appetit.

Pear & Celery Soup
2 tbsp vegetable oil (or butter)
3 c peeled & diced Bartlett pears
1 small onion, peeled & diced
4 c peeled & diced celery*
1 liter vegetable stock
1 tsp ginger powder (or 1 finely chopped candied ginger)

optional garnish: Stilton blue cheese (non-vegan) or toasted walnuts (vegan)

In a medium saucepan, heat vegetable oil & sauté pears and onions until onions have become translucent. Add celery and continue to sauté until celery is softened. Add vegetable stock to pan, & simmer until celery is very tender. With an immersion blender, carefully puree soup until smooth. If using, stir in cream at the end. Do not boil again. Serve immediately with a garnish of crumbled Stilton or toasted walnuts, if you like.

*You must peel the celery, otherwise you have stringy bits in your soup - it's worth the extra effort.

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A Different Salad for Summer

Sometimes recipes that you love happen by accident. This week's summer salad is a good example of one. Usually, I have a good sense of what I am going to make before I even step into my kitchen. But several weeks ago, I thought I might make a salad for dinner. In my mind, it was going to be a simple green salad with celery, peppers and tomatoes. Then my husband reminded me that our contractor was going to be arriving the following week which means we needed to purge our clutter.(We are "lowering our basement." I know that concept may sound strange for most people but in our neighborhood in Toronto where the tiniest houses sell for a mint, a way of extending your living space when you can't add an addition to your house is to dig down your basement floor to create enough head space. This gives you an additional floor of livable space. If this sounds expensive, you're quite right, it is, but it is cheaper than moving. Unfortunately, we will be working for quite a while to pay this off. But we hope in the end, it will be worth it.)

That little impetus gave me some thoughts to see what was in our pantry and there I saw it, Israeli couscous, in a gleaming mason jar. I had been thinking about using it and I thought I might try it as sort of a "light" pasta salad in that there would be more vegetables with just a highlight of starch.

The result is a clean, fresh tasting salad with the flavours of summer: tomatoes, peppers, and celery. It's juicy and crisp and feels like the type of salad you want to eat when the days are long and it is too humid to cook dinner. Even leftovers are delicious, it stays crisp even overnight and the couscous continues to absorb the flavours of the gardineria and the marinated mushrooms.

In fact, this “recipe” is so simple that I hesitate to call it that. It is really a couple of ingredients we had in the fridge tossed together. This recipe would work well for a picnic or a potluck where you might have limited access to refrigeration, easily doubles or triples to feed crowds and is easy to transport.

Israeli couscous is often mistaken for a grain, but in reality, it is actually quite similar to pasta. If you can't find Israeli couscous, you could use the more common finer-grained couscous or try a small pasta such as orzo. Israeli couscous can be found near the grains, rice section of your grocery store.


Israeli Couscous Salad


1/2 c Israeli Couscous

1/2 yellow / orange pepper
3 stalks celery, trimmed

1/2c marinated mushrooms*
1/2c gardinieria*

2 medium sized tomatoes

1. Cook Israeli Couscous per package's instructions in plenty of water until al dente. Drain couscous.

2. Meanwhile, chop pepper and celery into uniform medium-sized chunks. Add to a large bowl, toss with marinated mushrooms & gardinieria including some of the marinade. Add the warm couscous and toss well. Leave for at least 30 minutes (for best flavour).

3. Slice up tomatoes and add to salad when ready to serve.

*You can purchase marinated mushrooms and gardinieria (a delicious mixed vegetable pickle usually includes cauliflower, carrots, celery and hot peppers.) Both are so easy to make, but in a pinch we buy it. Alternatively, you could lightly pickle fresh vegetables by cutting up bite size pieces of your favourite vegetables - carrots, celery, cauliflower - tossing them in a boiling mixture of distilled white vinegar for up to 5 minutes. Strain and cool. Save some of the pickling liquid to toss with the couscous.
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Broccoli Potato Soup

It has been unseasonably cold in Toronto this past week so much so that I took my winter coat out of storage, grudgingly removed the dry cleaner's cover and wore it to work today. But it's not even Thanksgiving yet, I pleaded. Sigh.

So as my winter weather clothes come upstairs from our basement storage, it is time for me to pack away my the warm weather recipes of salads, light summer suppers and usher in thick woolly sweaters, slow cookers and comfort foods. So it begins...

Hmm. Did that sound overly negative about winter... Let me clarify... it's not a bad thing altogether. I do love comfort food. I love the warm, rich dishes we allow ourselves to indulge in when it's cold outside because we feel it fortifies our bodies and nourishes our souls... But I guess I was having a hard time, just because there are little green orbs on my tomato plant that sits on my backporch garden and there wasn't enough of the sun's rays to warm those little darlings to red. I just wasn't ready to say good bye.



Well, not all of summer is lost, yet... While the air feels chilled, there is still one remnant of summer with us. Our CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) half summer share continues for the rest of this month. In the early days of summer, we received tastes like garlic scapes, rhubarb, and strawberries. As the summer progressed, we were treated to tastes like exotic lettuce mixes, garlic, onions, herbs, peppers, potatoes, jalapenos, cantalopes, and watermelon. The half share brought a connection to the earth we never had before with our food. While we do our best to eat local, support the farmer's markets and eat foods in season, our weekly bounty from our organic CSA really made an impact to the way we think about our environment and the challenges farmers face.

This June, it rained hard and our first half pint of strawberries were on the small side and pock marked. The following week, the weather had improved and our strawberries were bright, fragrant and juicy. As an "owner" of a half share of a CSA farm, we are receive a "share" of the weekly harvest. What the weekly share is is highly dependent on what is ready to be harvested by the farm's owners. In the earlier weeks of the summer when the weather was unseasonably cold, our weekly box reflected this. At the height of summer, we would gasp at how many vegetables were in our box. There were weeks where we struggled to eat the contents of our "half share" and this week was no exception.



Now as summer fades into fall, our summer deliveries are winding down but our weekly take is still bountiful. With a small bunch of broccoli threatening to whither, about a pound of potatoes, and a bright grapefruit size white onion, I decided that a warming, hearty soup would be a good use of some of the gorgeous produce we received this week. It was also a good excuse to use my new Le Creseut dutch oven.



Broccoli Potato Soup
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 bunch of broccoli - washed well - no stalks
5-6 medium sized white potatoes - peeled
1 medium sized onion (or a half of one large one)- chopped roughly
1 liter of vegetable stock

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute gently. Sweat the onions, until they are soft and glossy.
2. Chop the potatoes into a large chunks and add to the pot.
3. Add broccoli and vegetable broth. Lower heat to a simmer and cover.
4. Cook until the potatoes are soft and crumble underneath your spoon.
5. Carefully, insert an immersion blender and whiz the soup until smooth and creamy. Do this slowly and carefully. If the soup is too thick, you can thin it out with additional vegetable broth. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning.