February 23, 2012

Last year about this time I was harvesting six heads of heirloom cauliflower from my garden and crafting delightful entrees and side dishes. Unfortunately, when my life got very busy in November I never made it back to the nursery to get cauliflower and red cabbage.

In January, when I returned to the garden in earnest, it was too late for cauliflower so I planted quinoa, transplanted some volunteer larkspur and wind poppy seedlings and bought a six pack of cheery Iceland poppies.

In another month or so I’ll forget the cauliflower and revel in the purple larkspur contrasting with the pale orange wind poppy and yellow Iceland poppies. Everything is growing nicely now and I have a post planned on my quinoa experiment.

Back to the cauliflower. I purchased a huge head of cauliflower at the Point Loma Farmer’s Market recently and was able to make some of our favorite recipes from last season. We had the remnant of the Moosewood Cauliflower Cheese Soup last night for dinner. Another unlikely pleasure was Cauliflower Cheese Pie, also from Moosewood Cookbook. See a quick-fix side dish I devised for steamed cauliflower with add-ons.

Note to self: plant cauliflower next November. Siri, will remind me November 15, 2012

A final thought on cauliflower from Mark Twain: “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”