Happy Accidents! (in the kitchen that is!)

Being that my dearest is a meat cutter, a perk is sometimes he brings home a beautiful cut of meat.  (such as the picture above.)  Downside, is sometimes I have NO idea what dinner will be until he brings something home. 

Well, on a gorgeous summer night, he brought us home some steaks as a special treat.  A once a year kind of a treat.  And I had NADA, ZIP, ZERO, NOTHING to got with it... or so I thought.

I had some leftover cubed summer squash and zucchini left from a cooking class (totally unrelated recipe, that perhaps I SHOULD share at some point.) 

I tossed the cut left overs in rimmed baking stone.  Drizzled garlic olive oil on it from the Stillwater Olive Oil Company.  I just love, love, love their oils.  Did you know they have butter oil that is dairy free and can be used as a butter substitute for those of us that are dairy-free?

I washed and cut a few more zucchini, summer squash, and halved some cherry tomatoes.  Drizzled a bit more oil... Added some Real Salt, dash o' pepper.  Baked at 400 until tender.  Baking time will vary according to the size of said chopped veggies, so you may have to experiment and occasionally check out the tenderness level.

To serve, we add a bit of regular Parmesan for the dairy-can-eat people and a bit of non-dairy parm substitute for the dairy-free people.

Simple, delicious, fast, cheap, nutritious... all those great words a summer cook wants to hear.

Maybe this should be dinner tonight.  YUM!

Buffalo Cauliflower

What's a girl to do when the pantry is bare? Improvise!

As I was trying to figure out what was for dinner without running to the store, I spotted some cauliflower in my fridge that needed to be eaten.  I vaguely remembered  seeing on Pinterest a recipe for using buffalo sauce on cauliflower.  Since we LOVE to eat Buffalo chicken around here, I figured I'd give it a whirl for dinner.

It was a hit.  I also made plain cauliflower nuggets.  Those were awesome too!

Buffalo Cauliflower Nuggets

Ingredients:

2 beaten eggs or 1 cup coconut milk

1 cup bread crumbs OR 1/2 cup GF flour + 1/2 cup potato flour

1 tsp. garlic

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. salt

6-7 cups of cauliflower florets (washed) or 1 large head

1- 1 1/2 cup of Hot Sauce (think Frank’s, see recipe below)**

1 TBSP melted coconut oil or Earth Balance Soy Free Butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place parchment paper on baking stone.

Mix together flours, garlic and salt to make breading.

Dip cauliflower florets into egg and the dip in breading.  Place on baking sheet.  Bake 25 minutes.

While baking combine hot sauce and butter.

After cauliflower is done baking, pour sauce over florets, return to oven and cook an additional 10 minutes.

Serve with blue cheese dressing or homemade ranch dressing.

Buffalo Sauce (Frank’s Hot Sauce)

1/3 cup ketchup

3 TBSP prepared mustard

3 TBSP apple cider vinegar

3 TBSP molasses

1 TBSP brown sugar

 1-2 tsp. red pepper flakes /cayenne pepper (or to taste)

1 TBSP oil of choice

½ tsp. turmeric

Cut cauliflower to size

Dip in egg or milk, then cover with breading

Bake on stoneware for 25 minutes

Cover with hot sauce, return to oven and cook an additional 10 minutes.

                                  We left half plain and they were great with honey mustard sauce!

They were so, so, so good!