Roasted Cauliflower and Chicken Sausage Casserole

Roasted Cauliflower and Chicken Sausage Casserole

I “borrowed” this recipe from my foodie blogging friend Seana over at Cottage Grove House. Her recipes have never failed me, and this one didn’t either. The flavors in this are bright and flavorful! If we hadn’t left town for a couple of days this would have been completely consumed. The original recipe called for almond meal and nutritional yeast, but since I couldn’t find either of those I subbed in with ground roasted almonds and shredded Parmesan cheese.

Side note: This made a LOT of food for my small family so I plan on halving it next time. Part of that was my fault for using a pound of chicken sausage instead of 1/2 pound — DOH! But the family liked it and that’s what counts, right? 😀

All Natural Chicken Sausage

Roasted Cauliflower and Chicken Sausage Casserole
Adapted from Roasted Cauliflower and Chicken Sausage Casserole at Cottage Grove House

1 medium head of cauliflower (roughly 2 pounds) cut into bite size florets
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 pound organic chicken sausages, removed from casings (1/2 pound would be plenty, too)
1 cup diced onion
1/8 teaspoon dried, crushed thyme
1 28-ounce can Italian-style diced tomatoes with garlic, oregano and basil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup roasted almonds, ground in a food processor
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Roasted Cauliflower

Preheat oven to 375°F.  In a large bowl, toss the cauliflower florets with the minced garlic and 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil. Spread the cauliflower on a baking sheet and roast for approximately 20 minutes, turning them over halfway through cooking time. When the cauliflower is lightly browned, remove from the oven and set aside.

Browning the Chicken Sausage and Onions

Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken sausage, breaking it up as you add it. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes until it is cooked through and browned thoroughly. Lower the heat to medium low and add the onions, and thyme. Sauté the mixture for about 5 to 7 minutes until the onions have started to soften.

Tomatoes Added to Chicken Sausage Mixture

Add the Italian diced tomatoes to the skillet, with its liquid. Stir thoroughly and cook for 5 more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Last, stir in the cauliflower until all pieces are coated with the tomato liquid.

Cauliflower Added to Mixture

Spray a 3-quart casserole with olive oil and pour the cauliflower and sausage mixture into the dish. In a small bowl combine the ground almonds and Parmesan cheese and distribute evenly over the casserole. Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Remove and let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Casserole Ready for Almond Cheese Topping

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Caldo Verde (Sausage and Spinach Soup with Cauliflower)

Caldo Verde – Sausage and Spinach Soup with Cauliflower

I think I’ve said the adage “Do as I Say and Not as I Do” many times here. Please listen to this advice. Not once, but TWICE I added the sliced sausage to the mix before blending the soup. I’m a bit daft that way, sometimes. So take my advice, and DO NOT ADD THE SAUSAGE to the soup until after you’ve blended it, OK? Otherwise you have to keep fishing it out of everything and placing it in a bowl. Good, we got that out of the way now.

This creamy soup was absolutely delicious, and nary a potato in sight for it which is the usual method to make it. Instead, cauliflower is first roasted and then blended with the stock to make a rich base for spinach and sausage. The flavors in this are complex and dreamy. I will make this again and not forget my own advice. 😉

p.s. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Caldo Verde (Sausage and Spinach Soup with Cauliflower)
Adapted from “Cauldo-Verde” by Bogre on the Food52 website

1 pound of cauliflower florets (from 1 small head)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus extra for roasting the cauliflower)
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
7 ounces (1/2 link) of a smoked turkey Kielbasa
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 to 6 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth
5 ounce bag baby spinach
Large handful Italian parsley, chopped
Large handful of cilantro, chopped
1/8 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (about 1/2 small lemon)

Roasted Cauliflower with Cumin and Smoked Paprika

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Toss the cauliflower florets with cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, and some good splashes of olive oil. Spread in a single layer in a roasting pan and roast in the oven for 30 minutes, flipping at the halfway mark. Remove from oven and set aside.

Browning the Kielbasa and Onions

In a soup pot or Dutch over medium-high heat, saute the onion and Kielbasa in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until onions are tender and sausage is browned, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir for about a minute more. Remove the mixture to a bowl. Now. Do not forget this step.

Add the roasted cauliflower and chicken broth to the pot (not the Kielbasa yet!), bring to a boil, reduce heat then simmer for about a half hour. Remove from the heat and puree in a blender or food processor (or use an immersion blender, which I don’t have.)

Wilting the Spinach

Return the blended soup to the pot over low heat. Add the sausage and onion mixture, the spinach, and the parsley and heat for about another 10 minutes until the spinach is wilted and soft. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped cilantro and lemon juice. Ladle into bowls and serve with thick slices of crusty, buttered bread. Welcome to my mouth, you complex creamy soup!

Caldo Verde – Sausage and Spinach Soup with Cauliflower

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Creamy Cauliflower and Potato Soup is a Community Pick!

Creamy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

I was so excited when I checked on the status of a recipe I submitted to a contest late last night on the Food52 website, and was pleasantly surprised to see my recipe was selected for the testing phase of “Your Best Recipe with Potatoes 2.0”!

Even though I don’t have a new recipe for you (we had been busy getting ready to host our first Super Bowl party in the new house), you can find a slew of great recipes on that website, including all the great potato recipes that made it through the first round of the contest!

Click here to view the Community Pick page —–> Your Best Recipe with Potatoes 2.0

You can click on the link to the recipe in the list. Enjoy!

Creamy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

Creamy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

I love it when I come across a recipe that inspires me to buy the ingredients on my next shopping trip and make it for lunch or dinner. This was such a recipe, and a big shout out to Seana at Cottage Grove House, who makes beautiful, easy-to-make homemade fresh dishes and shares them for people like me! Please go check out her site, if you would, here.

Although it’s been the warmest fall I can remember in the 20 years I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest, October means it is soup-making time. Who cares if I’m still wearing capris and t-shirts?

A 3-quart pot is the largest pot available in this tiny temporary kitchen, so I had to make some quantity adjustments to the original recipe. In addition, the store I went to did not have creme fraiche, so I had to use a homemade substitute for that.

This was a perfect, light supper for another beautiful sunny, fall day. And as luck should have it, my husband fried up some extra bacon when he made a BLT sandwich for lunch today, so I added some extra flavor to the soup by subbing one tablespoon of olive oil for bacon grease, then garnishing the soup with some of the bacon bits. The bacon part is totally optional, so this would be a great meatless meal for any day!

Creamy Cauliflower and Potato Soup
Adapted from Luscious Cauliflower Soup by Cottage Grove House

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced sweet yellow onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 head cauliflower, cored and roughly chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
5 cups chicken or vegetable broth, preferably homemade or low sodium
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream whisked with 2 tablespoons sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (not pre-shredded)
Snipped chives or green onion, for garnish
Chopped cooked bacon, for garnish (optional)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Chopped Onion, Cauliflower, and Potatoes

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil (or 1 tablespoon bacon grease and 1 tablespoon olive oil) in a soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the diced onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook about 1 minute, until fragrant. Add the cauliflower and potatoes and continue to cook for 5 minutes.

Add the broth and bring to a low boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 more minutes. Remove from heat

Simmering Cauliflower and Potatoes in Broth

In batches, blend about half the soup until desired consistency. Stir in the cheese, half & half and sour cream mixture. Garnish with snipped chives and bacon bits (optional). Pass with salt and pepper and adjust seasoning accordingly, depending on garnishes used. Serve with warm crusty, buttered bread.

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Cauliflower-Crusted Ling Cod with a Raspberry Beer Brie Sauce and Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower Crusted Cod with a Raspberry Brie Cheese Sauce

Thank you everyone who voted for my last recipe to make it to the next round of Diced!

You can read the recipe here below or on The Ranting Chef’s website here: Diced! – Kathryn – Cauliflower-Crusted Ling Cod with a Raspberry Beer Brie Sauce and Roasted Cauliflower

The next round involved a “white out” with a list of ingredients of all things white: white fish, cauliflower, Brie cheese, and white pepper. I immediately knew I would be using our last piece of Ling Cod from the freezer that our friend caught off the Oregon Coast when he took us out bottom fishing back in October. Since I knew I would be experimenting with a few dishes, I went and bought some inexpensive Tilapia to mess around with until I knew I had the perfect recipe. Good thing I did, because my first attempt at this dish resulted in disaster and quite the mess!

When I saw Brie as an ingredient, it made me think of a cheese pairing with fruit. Brie and fruit make a lovely pairing, particularly raspberries. So I figured some kind of cheese sauce for the fish was in order, but wasn’t quite sure how I’d pull that off. A cheese sauce also made me think of beer cheese soup. Next thing you know, I’m on the hunt at the grocery store for a fruity beer. Imagine my surprise when I came across a bottle of Raspberry Brown beer from Lost Coast Brewery. Perfect!

Raspberry Brown Beer and Brie Sauce

Now I had to figure out what to do with the cauliflower. Yes, it makes a great side dish when roasted, but I needed to do something really special with it for the fish. Then I started thinking about using it as a coating by “ricing” it. I decided I could try out the taste and texture of it by using the riced cauliflower mixed with Panko bread crumbs and butter and baking it atop some cheesy cauliflower, recipe here.  Well that worked out good enough, so then I tried coating a test piece of fish with it and pan-frying it. NOT! Cauliflower does not pan-fry well at all. I made a sticky burnt mess out of it.

Cauliflower and Panko Mixture

I was pretty sure baking it would work out much better, especially if I used an egg wash to help bind it to the fish. Yep, much better! And now I present to you this delicious Cauliflower-Crusted Ling Cod with a Raspberry Beer Brie Sauce and Roasted Cauliflower:

Cauliflower-Crusted Ling Cod with a Raspberry Beer Brie Sauce and Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients:
1 filet Ling Cod
2 cups milk
1 egg

For the crust:
2 florets cauliflower
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 tablespoon butter

For the roasted cauliflower:
1 small head cauliflower
1 tablespoon olive oil
Hungarian sweet paprika, to taste
Ground white pepper, to taste

For the cheese sauce:
1/2 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup Raspberry Brown beer
3/4 cup grated Brie cheese
1/4 cup half and half or whole milk
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper

Raspberry Brown Beer and Panko

Directions:

Soak the fish in the milk for several hours in the refrigerator. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Meanwhile, prepare the coating for the fish. Using a box grater, rice the two florets of cauliflower until you have about a half cup. Mix with a half cup of Panko bread crumbs and white pepper. Combine with the melted butter and set aside.

Slice the remaining cauliflower into 1/4 inch steaks and place in one layer on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray oil. Drizzle the olive oil over the cauliflower then sprinkle with Hungarian sweet paprika and ground white pepper, to taste. Place in the preheated oven.

Cauliflower and Paprika

Meanwhile, beat the egg with a splash of milk in a bowl. Remove the fish from the milk and dip in the egg wash and coat thoroughly. Dredge the fish through the cauliflower/Panko mixture, pressing down firmly to coat evenly on both sides of the fish. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray, then lightly spray the top with olive oil. Place in the oven with the roasting cauliflower, and cook until the fish is opaque and flakes easily with a fork, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Cauliflower Panko Crusted Ling Cod

While the fish and cauliflower are cooking, prepare the Brie and beer cheese sauce. Add all the sauce ingredients to a blender or food processor and process on high for several minutes until well blended. Pour into a small saucepan over medium heat and whisk constantly, until thickened. Season with ground white pepper, to taste. Turn heat to the lowest setting and stir occasionally until the fish and cauliflower are done.

Remove the fish and cauliflower from the oven. Spoon some of the cheese sauce onto a plate, and place the fish on top of it. (I shared this with my hubby so you see half a filet in on the final dish.) Drizzle more cheese sauce over the fish, add roasted cauliflower to the plate, and enjoy!

Cauliflower Crusted Cod with a Raspberry Brie Cheese Sauce and Roasted Cauliflower

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Cheesy Cauliflower with Cauliflower Panko Topping

Cheesy Cauliflower with Cauliflower Panko Topping

I’m doing a bit of experimenting with my cooking to help decide what I plan on making for the second round of the Diced! competition. Thank you so much to all who voted for me, as I made it to the second round at the top of the leaderboard. I couldn’t have done it without you!

This particular recipe uses two of the four required ingredients. You can probably figure out what one of them is. I won’t be posting my final recipe until it’s up for voting next round, but in the meantime I can share my experiments with you.

Riced Cauliflower

My husband made a ham for Sunday dinner, and asked if I could make one of the sides. Little did he know I had already planned on making this cheesy cauliflower dish, so it worked out perfectly. My original recipe for this includes mushrooms and doesn’t have a bread topping, but we didn’t have any mushrooms anyways so I just omitted them. (Which is just as well since my daughter doesn’t like mushrooms. She’s not a big fan of cauliflower either, but she’ll still eat it.)

When all was said and done, I think my experiment worked. That can be considered both good and bad, because now I have to decide whether I want to use this technique for the contest dish. So many decisions! But, in the meantime, here is a new side dish with an unusual but great topping:

Cheesy Cauliflower with Cauliflower Panko Topping

1 head cauliflower, broken into florets
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1/8 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Ground white pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. “Rice” a couple of the cauliflower florets, using a grater, until you have about 1/4 cup of riced cauliflower. Add it to a small bowl or measuring cup, then add the 1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs. Melt one tablespoon of the butter with the paprika, then mix well into the cauliflower/Panko mixture. Set aside.

Riced Cauliflower and Panko

Cook the cauliflower to al dente, either by steaming, microwave, or pressure cooker. I’m a fan of the pressure cooker, as it takes hardly any time! When it’s done cooking, place it in a casserole dish and cover.

Meanwhile, add the butter to a saucepan over medium heat until melted. Add the flour, and stir until a paste is formed. Quickly pour in the milk, whisking until all the lumps are out and the sauce has thickened. Add the mustard, then stir in the cheddar cheese until it melts and the sauce starts to bubble. Add ground white pepper to taste.

Stirring in the Cheese to the Sauce

Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower, then top evenly with the cauliflower/Panko mixture. Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes until the topping has browned lightly. Remove and serve immediately.

Cheesy Cauliflower Ready to Bake

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Grilled Turkey Sausage, Broccoli, and Cauliflower Foil Packets

Foil Packets Ready to Close and Grill

I just love the start of grilling season! That, and the versatility of grilled foil packets. There are so many variations of meats and vegetables you can add to the packets, and a tried and true simple marinade goes with just about anything. Rather than make “individual” packets, I just divide the food between two large packets then dump everything onto a platter when ready to eat. (Unlike this variation I made last summer the size of a watermelon! Link here for the variation, using red peppers and mushrooms: Grilled Sausage and Vegetables in Foil Packet)

I had my husband put these on the grill, and didn’t realize he had the two middle burners set on low instead of medium, so we didn’t get the yummy crispy-crunchy browned bits all over everything, but the potatoes and vegetables were tender and we were ready to eat, so I let it slide this time. Next time I’ll remind him of the heat setting.  This recipe easily feeds five or six people, and we enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Marinating Broccoli Cauliflower Potatoes Onions and Tomatoes

Grilled Turkey Sausage, Broccoli and Cauliflower Foil Packets

1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
3 medium potatoes, washed and chopped into chunks
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup cauliflower florets
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
1 large Roma or Plum tomato
1 large green onion, chopped
1 Smoked Turkey Sausage link (I used Jennie-O), cut into 1/2 to 1-inch chunks
1 tablespoon butter or substitute, cut into tiny chunks

In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, Mrs. Dash (or salt), and black pepper until well combined. Add all the veggies and let them marinate while you preheat a grill to medium heat. Prepare two large pieces of aluminum foil — heavy duty if you have it or double up if you don’t — to fit everything in them.

When ready to cook, add the sausage chunks to the bowl of vegetables and lightly toss around to distribute. Evenly spread the food over the center of the foil pieces, leaving enough room to close and seal the packets. Distribute the tiny chunks of butter over the top, then seal the foil packets.  Place the packets on the grill and close the lid and cook for about 40 minutes, or one hour if the hubs decides to mess with the heat settings, turning halfway through. Carefully open packets and dump contents onto a serving platter. Pass it around and help yourselves! You will be surprised how quick plates are emptied.

Grilled Turkey Sausage and Vegetables Ready to Eat

Roasted Broccoflower

Whole Broccoflower

No, this is not some alien green-dyed cauliflower. I spotted this at the grocery the other day when I was looking for some fresh veggies for dinner. We like broccoli, we like cauliflower… what the heck! The first thing I did when I got home was google this specimen to make sure I wasn’t being tricked into buying an over-priced fake veggie. I found that this hybrid vegetable was developed in Holland and the name Broccoflower was coined by the company Tanimura & Antle in California in 1989. Broccoflower® is actually a registered trademark!

I consulted my owl friends on the best way to cook this. I had thought about putting it in the pressure cooker as I make a mean Cauliflower in Mushroom Cheese Sauce with that recipe, but the vote was an overwhelmingly “Nooooo!” on that idea. Then came a suggestion of sautéing in oil in a saucepan with garlic. Ahhh… getting somewhere. I finally decided to roast the broccoflower in the oven, as I had roasted cauliflower that way before mixed with some other veggies. The ingredient list is short and the prep is easy. The hardest part was trying to get a good picture of it without any natural sunlight available and some of our overhead lights have burned out so had to use the flash. It took me so many shots to get anything halfway decent that the poor family had to eat it slightly cooled. I would recommend serving this as soon as it comes out of the oven, though. The broccoflower tasted slightly sweet, and the savory crunchy roasted garlic bits made this a winner side dish to go with our chicken!

Roasted Broccoflower

1 head broccoflower
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Black pepper to taste
Shredded Parmesan cheese

Roasted Broccoflower

Preheat oven to 400. Meanwhile, wash and trim the broccoflower and cut the flowerettes into even-sized pieces about 1/2-inch to an inch. In a glass bowl mix the olive oil, garlic and pepper. Add the broccoflower and stir to coat well. Pour the contents of the bowl onto a foil-lined baking sheet, and spread around evenly. Heat in oven for 15 minutes, then flip the pieces over with a spatula. Cook for another 15 minutes or so until everything starts looking brown and crispy. Sprinkle some shredded Parmesan cheese over top, then cook for about five more minutes. I only had about a tablespoon left of the cheese in the container so you really can’t see it in the photo, but feel free to add as much as you want! And, serve immediately for best results.

Cauliflower with Mushroom Cheese Sauce

Cauliflower with Mushroom Cheese Sauce

I mentioned the other day how much I love my crock pot. I have another kitchen gadget that hails from my mother that I should really start using more often — a pressure cooker.  I still have the original one from her, but the gasket blew out of the lid years ago so I kept the pot to melt wax in during a candle-making phase of my life. I think it’s in the garage, or maybe it did get tossed during the big “clean-out” last year.  I meander, though. Tonight I pulled out my newer one to cook a side dish I’ve made for years using the cooker. I know pressure cooking seems a little out-dated since the dawn of microwaves, but it can quickly — and I mean quickly — cook meats in a fraction of the time with other methods. Plus everything retains its juices and come out soooo tender. Some vegetables take about the same amount of time as any other method once you factor in the time to get it up to pressure, but since my microwave has been evil to us lately, I decided to use the pressure cooker.

My Presto Pressure Cooker

The recipe I use comes from my oft-mentioned Good Housekeeping cookbook circa 1979. The only difference is that it suggests using canned mushrooms in place of fresh. YUCK! Now I am no foodie snob, but don’t tell me that rubber in a can resembles anything near a mushroom. They should be banned from the supermarket shelves. I have a very close friend who actually keeps cans of them on her garage pantry shelf — visible! I still love her though.

Cauliflower with Mushroom Cheese Sauce

1 head cauliflower, cored and washed
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Ground white pepper, to taste

Cook the whole cauliflower head according to directions that came with the pressure cooker. You can also steam or microwave the cauliflower, but I prefer using the pressure cooker for a whole head. When it’s done cooking, place it in a deep casserole dish and cover.

Meanwhile, add the butter and mushrooms in a saucepan and cook about five minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the flour, and stir until a paste is formed. Quickly pour in the milk, whisking until all the lumps are out and the sauce has thickened. Add the mustard, then stir in the cheddar cheese until it melts and the sauce starts to bubble. Add ground white pepper to taste.  Pour the mushroom cheese sauce over the head of cauliflower. If the rest of your dinner isn’t ready, just put the covered casserole dish in a low oven to keep warm. I sprinkled some dried parsley over top at the end for color.