Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower

Recipe: Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower

Source: Ask Dr. Nandi

Time: 55 minutes (15 min prep, 40 minutes cooking)

Ease: 2

Taste: 1

Leftover Value: Was not worth saving

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I should have known better than to get my hopes up with a recipe on Facebook.  The one pot pasta should have taught me that.*

But I couldn't restrain myself.  It looked so good.  It looked so different.

It's looks were deceiving.

*I'm not totally knocking the one pot pasta.  It's a great concept and simplifies the whole process of pasta.  The only issue was it was a little bland (my issue) and lacked protein (Hubby's issue).

I think the problem with this recipe is that the end result picture looks a lot like a Thanksgiving turkey.  

DELICIOUS.

Remember the old saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover"?  This recipe is proof that it goes both ways.  Everything that looks good on the outside isn't as great as it seems on the inside.

I'm going to tell you where this recipe goes wrong. 

You can't really go wrong with cauliflower.  You either like it or you don't.  Ordinarily, I don't.

But that is not what made this recipe fail, not was it the reason I disliked it.

I have loved experimenting with grilling, ricing, and mashing cauliflower.  My favorite so far has been to put chunks of cauliflower into a food processor and get it to a rice-like state.  After that I put it in the oven on 350 for about 10-15 minutes and it is good to go.  While there is certainly an obvious difference from it and the real thing, on nights where I'm trying to cut back or simply go healthier it works.      

I used up the remainder of my Greek yogurt on this recipe.  That made me a little sad.

We start this recipe towards disaster by mixing Greek yogurt, lime zest, lime juice, and just about every spicy spice available (chile powder, cumin, garlic powder, curry powder, pepper).  

Alright, perhaps there are some spicier ones out there.

At this point I already knew the fate of this recipe, but I wanted to believe in it so badly that I ignored my gut.

Even if I had listened to my gut, I would have followed the recipe out to the bitter end.

Yet, I continued to tell myself that the odd combined smell didn't matter.  This recipe was going to be delicious.

This part was a little fun.  The head of cauliflower is dunked into the yogurt mixture and swirled around until completely covered.  Naturally this required that I eventually use my hands.  By the time the cauliflower ended up on the baking sheet it and I were equally as covered in spicy yogurt.

Since the cauliflower needed to bake for 30 to 40 minutes, I assume something scientifically magical was going to happen with the molecular make up of the spices and the yogurt.  Somehow it was going to transform this strange smelling cauliflower head into the roasted cauliflower that I imagined tasted like Thanksgiving turkey.

Foolish, foolish girl, I know.

As I pulled the finished product out of the oven, the never changing smell of cumin still hung prominently in the air, almost like a public service announcement warning me that my gut had been right.

Let me reiterate.  It was not the cauliflower's fault. 

Notice the brown chunks to the left of the plate?  That is what happened to the yogurt mixture.  I have no food relation that I can think to make for it.  It was like a paste that had become dried out.  Was it spicy?  Yes.  I'm not an overly excited fan of spicy food, because I usually can't handle it without needing a gallon of water.  However, I certainly know what good spicy food tastes like.  

This isn't it.

I'm tempted to experiment with this recipe some more.  The promise of an actually delicious roasted cauliflower head I believe does exist, it just will never involve yogurt and cumin.