It’s Wednesday, which means by this time in the week you might already be looking forward to the weekend. But, I bet hardly anyone looks forward to Sunday evening. Sunday evening means the weekend is drawing to a close, it’s time to make sensible decisions, and go to bed early to be ready for work Monday morning. However, this Sunday (at least in the US) there’s something to celebrate – the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead.

I love The Walking Dead, which is odd considering I’m afraid of zombies. I’ve been known to have zombie nightmares and my zombie apocalypse plan is to give up and get bitten. But still, I love The Walking Dead. I tend to watch mindless sitcoms, and for me this show is my jolt of drama, fear, and thrills. It’s not just the action I love, I really enjoy the characters. I like watching them evolve and deal with who they used to be and who they want to be, and have to be, now.

Also, I think the show is great because it’s pretty unpredictable. I wholeheartedly believe that any character could go at any moment. In most shows, you feel pretty confident that fan favorites and main characters are here to stay – but with this show I’m not so sure. Every week I just keep rooting for Daryl. On Mondays, I used to dissect every little thing with my coworker Erica. I miss that because it was always so fun to speculate. [Spoiler alert] Recently, a lot of the story lines have led to epic gun battles between groups of people – but then in the mid-season finale Beth’s scene was so quiet and intimate – yet so dramatic. The show always keeps me on my toes.

So to celebrate the show, I decided to make a cauliflower brain. I was inspired to make this by my friend Jubi who sent me a message asking if I had any recipes themed for TV shows. I didn’t, but I was into the idea because I adore themey stuff. I decorate for every holiday, I made Ryan a baseball cap shaped cake when the Nationals were in the playoffs, and I have Abraham Lincoln socks for Presidents Day. So why shouldn’t I also have foods perfectly matched for a TV viewing party?

I went with cauliflower because a whole roasted cauliflower looks sort of like a brain. And obviously, there’s nothing more Walking Dead appropriate than a brain.  Stab it with a big knife and you will have a bad-ass zombie killer center piece. Slice the cauliflower like a cake and serve to your guests. As we know for the show, we are all carriers for the disease so what’s the harm in eating a little zombie brains? Overall, this recipe is a little morbid, a bit spicy, and also pretty healthy.

A Thug Kitchen recipe inspired me to use Siracha, and I thought it would be perfect because you need a little spice and heat to survive among the Walkers and the hot sauce is a good stand in for blood. So, the sauce is adapted from Thug Kitchen and the rest is all Cooking is Messy, baby!

Messy level: Almost a one spoon recipe. Prepping the cauliflower is the most difficult part because I flung small pieces on the floor. Other than that, it’s simple seasoning, roasting, and smothering with sauce.

Walking Dead Inspired: Siracha Roasted Cauliflower Brain

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

45 mins

Total time

55 mins

 

Ingredients

• 1 whole cauliflower head
• 1 clove garlic
• 4 teaspoon olive oil, divided
• cayenne pepper, to taste
• salt, to taste
• ½ cup Siracha sauce
• ⅓ cup rice vinegar
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 450°F/230°.
2. Remove any leaves from the cauliflower and cut off any extra stem, so that the cauliflower will lay flat in a pan.
3. Cut the garlic clove in half and rub it all over the cauliflower.
4. In a small bowl or cup, mix 2 teaspoons of the olive oil with a sprinkling of cayenne pepper and salt. Taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking.
5. Brush this olive oil mixture all over the cauliflower.
6. Put the cauliflower on a rimmed baking sheet or small casserole dish. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, in a small bowl or jar mix together the Siracha, rice vinegar, remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil, and sauce sauce. Stir or mix until well combined.
8. After the cauliflower has been in the oven for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and brush half of the Siracha mixture over the cauliflower. If it's a little more than half it's ok, just leave some. Return to the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes more. The cauliflower is done when a knife can be easily stuck through it.
9. Remove from the oven, and pour the remaining Siracha sauce over it.
10. To serve, stab with a knife and then artfully squeeze some Siracha, straight from the container, around the knife to look like dripping blood.
11. When ready to eat, cut into slices and serve with your favorite creamy dressing.

3.2.2925

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I think the website is hilarious. I feel like if my college friends and I had a cooking show, it would be like Thug Kitchen. Probably less cursing, but the same idea that you’re awesome, what you’re making is awesome, and not to take it all too seriously. Anyway, today’s recipe comes from him.

When I found this recipe I was excited because I thought it would be something both Ryan and I would like. I want to have more meatless dinners, but it’s got to be satisfying and delicious for both me and Ryan. This seemed perfect because chickpeas are filling, there’s vegetables in the falafel, and the buffalo sauce is really flavorful and delicious. Also, Ryan and I were recently in Charlottesville, VA and ate at One Meatball Place and I loved their special buffalo chicken meatball. It was so juicy and amazing and I was eager to try something similar again soon.

Suffice it to say, I was inspired and Ryan and I were going to have buffalo falafel for dinner! I really liked it and had the leftovers for lunch for the next two days. It was spicy, flavorful, and I’ll call it “healthy” since there’s cauliflower in it. And as a broad generalization, I think it’s a good balance of foods girls like and foods boys like. I recommend eating it on pita bread or over lettuce and drizzled with ranch dressing.

If you don’t like spicy, you could still make the falafel and pair it with your favorite sauce. This sauce is great though, and I’d use it on chicken wings or any other meal where you’d like to add a kick.

Ingredients: 

Falafel:

1 15oz can of chickpeas, drained

1/3 of pound cauliflower

1/4 cup diced onion

2 gloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp all-purpose seasoning

2 tbsp bread crumbs

Buffalo Sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp flour

1 cup cayenne based hot sauce

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp vinegar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Grease a baking sheet

2. Using a food processor, chop up the cauliflower until it’s in tiny pieces.

3. In a bowl, mash the chickpeas until fairly smooth. You can leave some chunks, but you want it to be smooth enough so you can form chickpea balls.

4. Add the cauliflower, garlic, onion, oil, seasoning, and bread crumbs to the chickpea paste. Mix.

5. Form the mix into balls. It will make a little more than a dozen.

6. Put the balls on a baking sheet. Cook for 12 minutes, flip, then cook for 12 more minutes. They should be lightly brown on the outside.

7. While the balls are baking, start on the sauce. In a saucepan, heat oil

8. Add flour to oil. Stir continuously until it is golden. This takes about 3-4 minutes. Don’t let it boil.

9. Add half the hot sauce and mix. It should thicken up.

10. Add the rest of the hot sauce, water, and vinegar. Mix until smooth. It will smell spicy!!

11. After the falafels are done baking, pour buffalo sauce on top of them and bake for another 5 minutes. It’s less messy if you gather the balls on your baking sheet, then pour the sauce on them.

12. Serve and eat!

Messy level: I give this two spoons. It’s pretty self contained and there’s nothing that really splatters. I think it’s important to really grease the baking sheet well. I had a hard time flipping the balls over and so it made clean up a little more challenging.

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This year Ryan and I decided not participate in a CSA (community supported agriculture). Partially it was because we remembered too late to sign up. But we also had a lot of waste last year. We’d get a huge bag full of beautiful vegetables and we just couldn’t eat everything before the next bag and before things went bad. The thing I miss about a CSA is getting veggies I’ve never seen before. Without a CSA I never would have tried kohlrabi, garlic scapes, or rainbow chard. So I promised myself that instead of a CSA, when I go to the farmer’s market I’d try to push myself out of my comfort zone. Enter, purple cauliflower. It’s just so darn pretty!

And not only is it pretty, but cauliflower isn’t a vegetable I’ve eaten much. I looked to some of my favorite cookbooks and blogs, and what I found is that pretty much everyone covers cauliflower in cheese. I love cheese. I think cheese makes everything delicious. So, when I decided to get cooking, I went with Smitten Kitchen’s recipe (she even used purple cauliflower!). This recipe is basically the creamiest, most luscious mac and cheese – only instead of pasta it’s cauliflower.

I made it before going out to dinner with Ryan and his friend Shane, and both boys liked it. So here’s a boy approved veggie recipe. It did look weird, but it was so yummy. It was also something we’d take out of the fridge, and with each bite we’d be like “oh yeah!” Each bite was always better than we remembered. And of course, the purple-ness makes it fun.

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds of cauliflower florets (I used a mix of purple and white cauliflower)

4 tbsp butter, divided in half

3 tbsp flour

2 cups hot milk

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese (divide this into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1/3 cup bread crumbs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°

2. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Cook cauliflower in boiling water for 5-6 minutes. You want the cauliflower to be a little bit tender with still a bit of crunch. When done cooking, drain cauliflower and set aside.

3. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a saucepan over low heat.

4. Add the flour to the melted butter. Stir constantly for 2 minutes. It should be a thick-ish paste.

5. Pour the milk into the flour-butter mixture. (I heated the milk in the microwave until it was steaming, but not bubbling. It was probably about a minute at high heat.) Stir occasionally until it comes to a boil.

6. Once it’s to a boil, use a whisk to stir the milk for about 1-3 minutes, until it thickens. I have a really hard time with the phrase “thicken” because it seems so vague. When has it gone far enough? What this means to me is that I put a spoon in the mixture, the liquid sticks to it, and then when I touch the spoon it feels thicker than regular liquid.

7. Turn off the heat. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, 1/2 cup of Gruyere, and Parmesan.

8. I used a 9×9″ pan. You can use something a bit larger too. Pour about 1/3 cup of the sauce into the bottom of the pan. Pour the drained cauliflower on top of the sauce.

9. Now pour the rest of the cheese sauce over the cauliflower. Mix it a bit so that everything is coated. I used a spoon to mix, and a silicone brush, to make sure the cheese was evenly spread.

10. In a small bowl mix the bread crumbs and last 1/4 cup of Gruyere. Sprinkle on top of the cauliflower.

11. Melt the last 2 tbsp of butter. Drizzle over the top of the gratin.

12. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

13. Bake for 25 minutes until the top is browned.

14. EAT IT!

Messy Level: I’m giving this three spoons. You have to use a number of dishes to make this meal (two pots and a baking pan). Also when cutting the cauliflower I had little shards of leaves and florets all over the counter and floor. Additionally, making and pouring cheese sauce is a bit messy. There are a bunch of steps and some messy conditions, but this recipe is also pretty easy and straightforward. Definitely worth making!

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