Things I Eat: Roasted Cauliflower with Rice

On most days, I eat vegan. It's just how my life is. It's either vegan or there is an animal involved - there's sort of no middle ground of dairy or egg or other animal by-product.

One thing this has taught me - and something that someone stated to me once before and I didn't fully absorb - is how much we look to meat to be the centerpiece of our main meal. This concept puts me onto one side of a polarized argument with Nick Offerman and.  .I don't know. . .PETA? That doesn't seem right. Ok, this paragraph is not going the way I planned.

Anyhow - the point is, we so often see dinner as a meat, one vegetable and one starch. That's the meal. Some type of roast beast and hopefully something like corn and mashed potatoes.

Man, that sounds good.

I got odd looks from a friend when I told her my dinner one night was potatoes and rice.

T: That's two starches!
A: . . .
T: I guess that's ok for you.

What's wrong with two starches? What's wrong with having a vegetable as the main centerpiece of a meal? Like cauliflower.

Nothing.

What You Need

• 1 head of cauliflower: It was enough to feed me and my husband. And I overate.
• Garlic: I used the jarred minced kind for quickness.
• Olive oil: Always good for oven-roasting!

As a bonus, I made some brown short-grain rice. I am trying to learn how to make rice.

• 2 cups brown short grain rice: I got this from the bulk food aisle at Whole Foods.
• 2 small onions: You can use one LARGE onion. I sauteed this up.
• 5 cups water: I think. I started with four and added more.
• 3 bullion cubes: You can use chicken or vegetable. I like the flavor.
• Rosemary, thyme, garlic: To taste. I did use a LOT of rosemary and my place smelled great!
• 1 pound frozen green beans: This was a game-day decision - just added it at the end.

What You Do

According to the Internet, brown short grain rice takes 50 minutes to cook. I forgot how long cauliflower takes. It's ok, you can just eyeball the roasting process. 

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

I sliced up my onion and put it into my super-awesome French (dutch) oven to saute with the rosemary, thyme and garlic. You can also add salt and pepper - whatever. I cooked the onions until they were sweating and a little transparent. 

Then I put in my brown short grain rice and water. Once everything came to a simmer, I covered it and timed it for 50 minutes. 

The key is to NEVER LOOK AT THE RICE! Like the cooking process of rice is some dirty, dirty secret that you cannot know about. Or, scientifically, you want to keep all the heat and steam in the pot so everything cooks right. 

Dirty.

Then I got to the malicious chopping of the head. Of cauliflower.

As far as chopping veggies goes, cauliflower is a medium wrangle level. You want to get rid of all the green stuff and then chop the florets into. .mm ..  floret sizes. 

Yeah - that's good stuff! Then you can drizzle with olive oil, molest it into the veggie a bit and add any bits of garlic you would like and maybe some garlic powder. Pop that into the oven. The Internet says it will take 20 minutes to roast. You can eyeball it - you want to see some browning and the florets should be soft. And delicious.

At this point, I started drinking. 

When the rice had about 5 more minutes, I broke the code and added in a package of green beans. It was a whole frozen package. Maybe a pound of green beans. I thought the meal would look sort of white and it needed some color. Besides, rice and green beans is a good thing.

Then everything was done! This is an amazing shot of everything on my stove. The black stuff on the baking sheet - minus the cauliflower is garlic bits that were soooo good. 

Because I am a bowl person, I put everything into a bowl and even topped it with a little bit of this Onion Crunch. It does have wheat in it, but, it's a nice little flare to the meal.

The cauliflower was very tender and flavorful - so much more than raw cauliflower. It is also so good warm. I eat a lot of food cold - this needs to be warm. So good! The rice with the rosemary and green beans added a deliciously fresh kick, the cauliflower was tender and almost smokey with chunks of garlic to enhance.

Nope - my photography will not be getting any better. However, my belly is full and this was such a fantastic meal I overate.