Curry Roasted Cauliflower & Sweet Peas

Have I mentioned how much I've grown to love cauliflower? I used to hate it. HATE it. I didn't like the taste, but especially didn't like the texture.

Turns out it just wasn't being cooked right for me!

I fell in love with my friend Ferial's roasted cauliflower with parmesan a while back, and have been looking for some other interesting ways to season roasted cauliflower. One of my favorite food blogs, Can You Stay For Dinner? (this blogger lost 130+ lbs and has kept it off for a few years!) had a good-looking curry roasted cauliflower and sweet pea recipe that I decided to try the other night. I like curry. I like roasted cauliflower. I like sweet peas. No surprise that this recipe was a winner, then.

Catch of the day: drum fish

But first, I have to brag a little about fish. Yes, fish. As in, the-fun-time-I've-had-catching-some-big-fish-and-eating-them-and-they-were-delicious.

Two plates for so much good food!

My in-laws have a cabin up north on the Missouri river, near the Ft. Randall dam; however, due to the epic flood last year, the cabin was unusable for over a year, until it could be cleaned, gutted, and basically rebuilt. We finally got to head up there toward the end of July, and the fishing has been amazing! We also discovered that in addition to bass, walleye, pike, and crappie, the drum fish are apparently abundant, fun to catch, and delicious to eat! The guys grilled up the whole catfish with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and I breaded and fried up the drum fillets. Add some roasted green beans, corn, and slices of bread and we had ourselves a pretty amazing feast!


And now, back to the cauliflower.

In addition to yummy cauliflower, my friend Ferial has also taught me a love of Indian spices. Ferial is Kenyan, and her family is of Indian descent, so she is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Asian and African cooking (or just cooking in general. Because she's pretty much a domestic goddess as far as I'm concerned). I didn't have a chance to find out how Ferial mixes her own curry powder (did you know curry isn't a single spice? Me either, until I met Ferial.) before making this, so I just used a store-bought curry mix from Spice Islands, which seemed to be fine.

A few notes about this recipe: it calls for 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, but it ended up being a little too hot for me. As in my-mouth-and-lips-were-on-fire hot. Ben loved it and thought it was great, though. I think if this was served over rice, as the original blogger did, it would probably temper the heat a bit. But I'm going to reduce the cayenne a little the next time I make this. Also, I didn't drizzle it with olive oil, I used my Misto sprayer--which, while more effective at covering the cauliflower, made it impossible to measure the amount of oil I used. Hence, I don't think I used enough oil--the cauliflower came out of the oven with less of a spicy glaze (like in the original blogger's pictures) and more of a covered-in-spice-powder look/feel, which may also be why the cayenne seemed so strong. Finally, make sure you use a very large cauliflower head (or more than one), as I only had a small one, and it didn't produce enough cauliflower for a sufficient peas-to-cauliflower ratio. That was probably another reason why the cayenne was too strong for me. ;)

Curry Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Peas (from Can You Stay For Dinner?)

Ingredients
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets (about 4-5 cups)
2 tablespoons canola or grapeseed oil
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 cups frozen sweet peas, thawed
Fresh cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 450°. Toss the cauliflower florets in the oil in a large bowl. Add spices and toss again to coat each floret well.  Spread cauliflower onto a foil lined baking sheet.

Roast for 20 minutes, or until cauliflower is beginning to blacken and is easily pierced with a fork. Stir the thawed peas with the hot florets on the baking sheet, sprinkle with fresh cilantro, and serve.  Makes 4-5 servings.

I ate mine with steak and a slice of bread.

Nutritional Information (cauliflower/peas, 1 serving):
Calories: 130
Fat: 7.25    Carb: 15   Fiber: 5.5     Prot: 5