Roasted Cauliflower & Smoked Gouda Soup

It's cauliflower season!     

     Trust me, I know cauliflower is not glamorous, sexy, or exciting. It is plain old white and sort of mellow in flavor and even people who really like cauliflower never really LOVE cauliflower.

     But even a plain Jane like cauliflower can put on a little black dress and get noticed once in awhile and if you don't peg yourself in the the even like cauliflower category, try this out you may truly be surprised.

     So what transforms cauliflower? In short, a little heat- roasting to be more specific. It gives it color, makes it sweeter, yet more earthy. Just like plain old white sugar is transformed with heat into magical caramel full of color and complexity so too does heat transform this vegetable in a way that you can't really imagine until you try it. So try it, you may just love cauliflower after all . . .

 Ingredients:
2 heads of cauliflower, washed and chopped into florets
3 C beef stock (or vegetable if making vegetarian)
2 C milk, cream, or half and half (I use whole milk)
4 oz smoked Gouda, grated
1 medium white onion, diced
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t. nutmeg
ground black pepper
salt
olive oil

Directions: preheat your oven to 425F. Drizzle a little olive oil on a large (approx 11x17 or larger) cookie sheet and add cauliflower and garlic seasoning lightly with salt and pepper and toss lightly to coat. Spread out cauliflower evenly on the sheet and place in the oven for 12 min. Remove from oven and toss again checking in 10-12 min to see that cauliflower is generally golden and not getting too brown.

In a stock pot cook the onion in a little olive oil until the onion turns clear and starts to caramelize. Add the stock and leaves from the thyme sprigs. Bring to a low boil, then add the roasted cauliflower and turn off the heat. Using an immersion blender blend in the pot until fairly smooth or transfer in batches to a blender until all is well blended. Add the cheese and nutmeg and stir until the cheese has melted. Add the milk and stir, blend more until the consistency is to your liking. Serve with croutons or crackers and garnish with additional fresh ground pepper, thyme, and/or nutmeg. Enjoy!

Easy (Cheater) Pumpkin Pancakes

     So my favorite thing about fall? Pumpkin. Nothing makes me more excited than seeing pumpkin in almost everything, then I think why not all year? Then I realize pumpkin taking center stage for two months rather than twelve is why I get so excited about it and makes it such a treat. I could put a recipe I have to make these from scratch but in a spirit of honesty these capture all the magic and take 10 minutes. Truly just 10 minutes for 10 moist, slightly sweet, slightly spicy, golden pancakes that will win over anyone and bring pumpkin to center stage at your next breakfast. May want to double this . . . 10 go really fast.

      So when I am going for fast and easy I like Krusteaz Buttermilk pancake mix the best. To make the batter add 1 1/2 C mix, 3/4 C water, and 1C canned pumpkin or homemade puree and mix.
     Once somewhat mixed add 1/2 t pumpkin pie spice (or 1/4 t cinnamon, 1/8 t ground ginger, several grates of nutmeg or a healthy pinch of ground nutmeg and a healthy pinch of allspice. Then stir and adjust thickness of your batter if needed with additional water. I like mine about the consistency of yogurt.

     Heat your griddle to 350 degrees F or pan on medium and lightly oil or spray the surface. Then ladle out your batter.
     Never made pancakes before? Look for bubbles to form on the surface, when they pop they will form craters across the surface, when you have all craters and no bubbles, they're ready to flip. This picture if you click to enlarge it shows mostly bubbles with a few craters to give you and idea of what I'm talking about.

    
     Give them a couple minutes on the other side and they'll be ready to go, as will you. They smell like pumpkin pie and if you're like me there is almost nothing better.
     Serve with: butter and maple syrup, butter and powdered sugar, maple butter, sweetened ricotta, cream cheese glaze, or a personal favorite in my house is to slather them with chocolate hazlenut spread. Any way you do it these are sure to please and quick and easy.

"Sun" Dried Tomatoes

  I LOVE fall, it's my favorite season and favorite time of year. But often fall seems to come late and winter early, and I know then this smiling jar of summer now in my fridge will be oh so welcome when the ground has frozen hard and my garden is in its deep slumber.

More of a technique than a recipe a good friend asked me about making sun dried tomatoes- so I thought I'd share what I know. I learned from some of the best pasta mamas in Italy, but adapted the technique for a more consistent, and sanitary, method using a dehydrator rather than the sun; hence the quotation marks in the title. First you simply cut the tomatoes in halves and trim out the cores. Any ripe tomatoes will do and while some like to seed and core I like the more rustic look and the sweeter taste of just the simple halves. They do take longer to dry this way, but the results are worth it.

Lightly salt the cut sides and place them cut side up on your racks for the dehydrator or if going old school place them on a large screen or parchment lined cookie sheets and place them in the sun EARLY as it will often take more than a day and then bring them in at night and repeat. In a dehydrator set the temperature for 140 degrees F and check them at 12 hrs and vary your time from there. Depending on the size of the tomatoes they will take approx. 14-18 hours. Once dried they should have a slightly crisp to a sort of leathery feel, they should not feel wet if they are fully done. Heat about 1C of olive oil and add 1 clove chopped garlic. (I like to use a tea ball for this so I don't have garlic pieces in my oil. Once the garlic turns lightly golden remove the oil from the heat and remove the garlic from the oil.

Cut the tomatoes with kitchen shears into strips or leave in halves if you prefer. then cover them with the garlic infused oil. I then like to add vegetable oil (enough to cover all the tomatoes) as it will keep the olive oil from clouding so badly in the refrigerator although you can use straight olive oil if you prefer. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use- although if you can wait a few weeks the garlic and tomatoes will blend in the oil and give you a two for one- sun dried tomatoes like you have never tasted and sun dried tomato garlic oil for dipping bread or drizzling on salad or mixing with goat cheese and topping crackers with both the cheese spread and the tomatoes . . . it'll take the chill right out of winter, I promise.