Blog absence
Wha'...? It has already been two whole weeks since my last post? Yikes, work-life has been very busy. My small department of four is down by one because a colleague left for 'an opportunity he couldn't resist' and then there was last week. A short one due to Memorial Day, plus month end, plus one on vacation. That left two out of four to do the work of 4.
Well, that fun week is over, and here is the next one already but we're back to three peeps - yay!
While I haven't posted, and I have also not commented much, I did read quite a bit on Hive. You know during those moments when you need to step away from work for just a few breaths. But I hardly ever left a comment. And now that I have a little more free time again so I could comment and post I feel strangely blocked to write anything really.
So, finally, I thought to just start writing a draft. This is now the third iteration of that draft. Maybe this one will see the light of day?
Topic change - Food
In May hubby went to the West Coast for a week to see his family. I had to work so I stayed home in New Jersey. Hubby is really not a picky eater in fact he is really good and adventurous and likes to try new things. But there is one food that I only cook in those very rare cases I am alone at home.
Cauliflower
He eats broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, all the weird veggies - all the non-weird ones, too, of course - but cauliflower? No thank you. So in anticipation of him being away, I bought a whole head of cauliflower. Don't worry it was more like a baby head, maybe 5 - 6 inches in diameter. And once you trim off all the stems of the leaves there isn't too much left.
Still too much for one meal though. Because my go-to recipe for cauliflower also involves potatoes and eggs plus spices and such. Here - all of this went into my dish
I was slightly impatient so I divided the head of cauliflower into the individual florets and then blanched them for a couple of minutes. In the same water, I boiled the potatoes until they were done which only took a few minutes because they were so small.
I spread the cauliflower florets and the potatoes evenly in the baking dish. And I think this was my mistake. Not the spreading evenly but using this particular dish. More on that in a moment.
In a separate bowl, I beat the two eggs as you do for a soufflé, mixed them with oat milk, and added salt, pepper, and paprika as well as a little cheese before pouring the mix over the veggies.
Once done I added some more cheese because who doesn't like melted, oven-fresh cheese?! Yum, yum yum.
The oven was pre-heated to 405°F when I placed the dish on the middle rack. This is when I realized my mistake of the missing lid - duh! Well, improvisation, especially in the kitchen is my second nature, so I rummaged through the cabinets and found this big but round glass lid. It had to do.
What can I say? Here it is. It was a fail - the soufflé didn't rise. The combination of the dish being too big or having too little egg mixture in it plus no tight lid meant that the necessary heat and steam had too much space and evaporated into the oven instead of staying in the dish and doing soufflé things.
But you know what? Despite that somewhat visual fail, I enjoyed my dinner, it was delish and I have had my cauliflower fix for the next year or so. Oh, and as you can see, I spiced up dinner a little by adding some prosciutto to it. Not required, but definitely not bad.
Have a great rest of your day!
Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee
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