Wow – it’s been a month since my last post. Life sure has gotten in the way of my blog!
Let’s see – our son graduated from college, we celebrated his 22nd birthday, fulfilled business and family obligations, and took our annual scuba diving trip to Pirates Point at Little Cayman – that will take the bite out of anyone’s month!
We returned home from our diving trip to find an absolutely dismal array of options for creation of a meal. Fortunately, cauliflower is a far more forgiving veggie than its sister cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts. While broccoli flowers can yellow and cabbage and Brussels sprouts can wilt, brown, and become bitter, cauliflower heads will usually stay fairly fresh over a one to two week period, with only a little browning on the outer flowerettes – which is easily cut off.
So, cauliflower seemed to be my best option to throw together a quick meal without venturing to the grocery store.
I have several delicious cauliflower and sausage pastas in Fool a Carnivore – but didn’t have either the Field Roast or the Tofurky Italian sausages that the recipes used.
Fortunately, I had a package of Upton’s Naturals Italian Seitan, which turned out to be simpler to use and just as tasty. For those of you concerned about meat analogues being processed food, Upton’s ingredients for this product (all non-GMO, of course) are simply water, vital wheat gluten, soy sauce (water, wheat, soybeans, salt), whole wheat flour, garlic, oregano, sea salt, onion, fennel, black pepper, and fennel. Each 100 calorie serving has 15 grams of protein.
I roasted the cauliflower in the oven – but first I drizzled it with Lemon Extra Virgin Olive Oil from The Oilerie (my dear neighbor Gloria brings me back a bottle of something fun from The Oilerie every time she vacations on Hilton Hilton Island). The lemon oil added some pizzazz to my aging cauliflower. Instead of incorporating the cauliflower into the simple sauce (made with crushed tomatoes, garlic, black olives and Upton’s Italian Seitan), I separately sauced the Colavita radiatori, and added the lemony roasted cauliflower on top of the sauced pasta. It was a delicious contrast and eliminated the need for cheese – although if you are not a vegan, a sprinkling of Parmegiano-Reggiano would make it even better.
We all thought that this was delicious for a thrown together meal on the first day home from vacation with little in our fridge.
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