The Cauliflower Chronicles, Part One

by Katie

After seeing the fam and eating pumpkin cookies from the Allentown Farmer’s Market, the best thing about going to Pennsylvania is coming back to DC with a bag full of random foods that I may or may not need but will definitely eat. This weekend, I agreed to take an extra cauliflower off of my mom’s hands. They were really, really, really on sale, she told me, so she couldn’t leave with just one!

“Well, I’ve got some cauliflower in my fridge, but it’s going to go bad soon, and I like it, so, yeah,” I agreed.

Apparently I missed the part where my mom described the cauliflower as “freakishly large” or “possibly superintelligent.” For comparison, I present the photo above. Bear in mind that I’m a pretty huge lady. So huge that most women’s hats don’t even fit my fat head! So huge that when Liz, Wes, and I take photos together, it looks like Liz had her head shrunk by some Conradian witch doctor. Continue making your own “fat head” jokes at my expense.

Now I’m faced with this enormous cauliflower that is going to rot if I don’t eat it. So I’m going to cook it, and chronicle my adventures here. I like to play music when I cook, so it’s very tangentially related. Here we go!

Recipe: Indian Spiced Cauliflower Soup via Recipezaar
Soundtrack: Fanfarlo, Reservoir

There are two options when confronted with a vegetable this formidable: be afraid, or be a friend. I chose the latter!

And I began chopping things for my cauliflower soup.

Admittedly, I think I’m a better cook than I am, and I get bored with recipes that aren’t descriptive enough, like this soup recipe. Three cups of stock and “one head” of cauliflower means nothing to me, especially considering the size of the cauliflower head I was working with! This is why I like the Food Network so much; they tell me how things should look and feel, instead of abandoning me with a vague number of cauliflower florets and some gumption.

Also, I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I had other cauliflower in my fridge already. So in addition to this pot of cauliflower that I hacked from my new friend:

I also had a big ol’ bowl of orange cauliflower to include.

Vegetables sufficiently (read: half-assedly) chopped and warming in olive oil and Indian spices, I began prepping my stock. They didn’t have vegetable bouillon at the supermarket today, so I grabbed a mysterious brown paste called Better Than Stock, in the vegetable flavor. It couldn’t be worse than stock, right? I mixed a bit too much of it with boiling water and poured it over the sauteing cauliflower. That unmistakable curry smell filled the house. It looked pretty tasty too:

After letting it boil away for a bit, I blended it like a mixed drink and gulped it straight from the pitcher. Just kidding; I used a spoon.

At this point, let me provide a kitchen safety tip that should be obvious to anyone over the age of three: Turn off the stove when you’re blending your soup. I didn’t, and the bits left in there started boiling hardcore, splashed, and burned my fingers. Seriously. I’m not smart.

I’m pretty sure the orange cauliflower contributed to the soup’s ultimate barfy color.

That wouldn’t stop me from tasting it, though. And taste it I did!

The boiled cauliflower pieces were, admittedly, a little tastier before they were blended. The “stock” was too strong and gives a bit of a Vegemite-y tinge to the whole thing. The cumin and garam masala are delicious though, and I look forward to smelling like curry for the next three days.

It tastes nice with bread, but overall I think it’s missing something to cut the saltiness. The recipe suggests mixing it with yogurt, which I can’t eat, so…

Overall, friends, this has been a fun and enlightening experience. I’ve got days worth of soup, and years worth of cauliflower left.

UNTIL NEXT TIME! MWAHAHAHAHA!