When midday mealtime comes, I hardly want to stop what I'm doing to prepare something to eat. I'd rather pause the day's work, stroll to the kitchen, scoop something already made out of a dish or pot, grab a book, and savor good words while I savor good food, with plenty of time for both (I've just finished this lovely story). Good thing I don't have to sacrifice delicious taste and nutrition for the faster-food of lunchtime.
This must be why there are salads. In summer, the abundance and variety are something to applaude: garden salad, tomato salad, potato salad, tofu Greek salad (one of my favorites since childhood), pasta salad, Caesar salad, and on and on. And of course, there are things like quiche and frittata, too. In winter, save for what's become my go-to kale and quinoa salad, and soup of course - all the winter soup, the choices tend more toward the oven-roasted. Left-over lasagna and salmon pie, roast chicken, chipped barbecue beef, potatoes au gratin, pizza - all these from the previous night's dinner have found their way onto my lunchtime plate.
But in winter, I've found, I have to make a consious and significant choice for vegetables. In summer, it's easy, almost effortless, they're so fresh and plentiful; in winter, not so much. That's when I look to the long-time keepers for inspiration. Deep heat, herbs, olive oil, salt & pepper, and chunked root vegetables in the belly of the oven are the soulfood of winter afternoons. One sweet potato, done like this, and I think I'm in France. One head of cauliflower, and I think I'm in Seattle (I know cauliflower isn't a winter vegetable, nor is it a root vegetable, but stay with me, Molly would never lead us astray).
When I first read Molly's account of this Parmesan oven-roasted cauliflower, I noticed that she called it a meal; I understand why. It is, in and of itself, all you'll want to eat come lunchtime in March, and you'll want to eat it by the bowlful. Then, when you're packing the left-overs into a jar for tomorrow's lunch, you'll eat two more mouthfuls besides. Then, with swift fingertips, you'll sweep up every last bit of the herby, olive-oily, caramelized-oniony, roasted Parmesan and caulifower bits left clinging to the parchment.
It's that good.
One head barely lasts me two meals; if I were to feel generous enough to share it with my family, I'd have to roast two or three. Thankfully, because of underdeveloped tastebuds in the mouths of teenage boys, there's no need to feel generous.
PARMESAN ROASTED CAULIFLOWER, right this way.
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