Life of Wry

Triumph #1: a cauliflower casserole with a parmesan-“everything bagel” topping. I was at first seriously drawn to this recipe, then growingly dubious it would turn out, then pleasantly surprised and quite certain I’ll make it again.

The short of it: you make a roux with butter and flour, which always gives me anxiety. Garlic gets added just before the flour part, which I burned b/c the butter was too hot, but soldiered on anyway, which turned out fine. You add milk until you have this very thick base, into which you add the florets of cauliflower (and some chives and cayenne, s&p). It’s goopy. But after 20 minutes of baking, it browns up and looked pretty good.

Then you sprinkle a mix of grated parmesan, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and caraway seeds (I substituted flax b/c I dislike caraway) and put it back under the broiler for a couple minutes. It crisps up beautifully and the texture is fantastic. It was absolutely delicious!

It’s the center dish, accompanying an Ina Garten baked chicken and a beet, arugula, goat cheese salad. (It was Dining Divas night!).

Triumph #2: Martha Stewart’s heart-shaped brownies (for Valentines Day tomorrow, obvs!)

I made these last year, as well. May become an annual tradition, except that we’re not supposed to eat dark chocolate anymore, so says the heavy metal police. Not sure what to do about this latest health warning.. but maybe one little brownie heart won’t kill us? Let’s hope.

This is the block of brownie right out of the oven…

Then you do this….

Then you do this….

They’ll be served tomorrow with chocolate mint ice cream (mostly because I couldn’t find peppermint candy ice cream… hmm).