Jamie Oliver's Whole Baked Cauliflower

I hate to be wasteful with food.


And I think Chris hates it even more.


I just finished reading Sharks Fin Soup and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop and after a long love affair with chinese cuisine, towards the end of the book, she describes her growing lack of appetite for extravagantly wasteful banquets that no group of people could ever finish. A lot has changed in China since it's years of poverty and starvation during the Cultural Revolution, but Dunlop also points out, what's the difference between a lavish Shanghai feast and the mass amounts of food that get thrown out by the British and Americans every day. Why pick on China?


I cringe to write it but yesterday I threw out a whole yellow squash. I had bought three, the two best went into dinner but the third was a little spongy and past it's prime, I had peeled it already, thinking I may use it but instead I turned my cheek and tossed it into the plastic garbage sac hanging from the door nob. Then later that night I did the same with three mealy apricots. It was kind of like taking an old dog to the curb and saying, "sorry, you just don't bark like you used to, so long"!


As a child these things would have at least made it into the compost pile but I do not have a backyard and there's no way I'm starting an urban compost bin in our bathroom. I'm usually pretty good when it comes to not over-shopping, or re-arranging the contents of the mini fridge for the third time that day in order to fit the leftovers in, but sometimes I miscalculate and perfectly good food goes to waste. I can be  picky and lazy which are not qualities I'm proud to admit. I'm sure I could have done something with the squash and apricots, but I didn't. 


It is for this reason that I did not buy cauliflower for a long, long time. About a year ago I bought a gigantic head of cauliflower and I can't begin to tell you how impossible it is to fit one in a refrigerator the size of a small television. Chris and I maybe ate a third of it, and then the rest sat out, went bad and got tossed. So, when I came across Jamie Oliver's recipe where you cook the whole thing, I got excited. It's easy, delicious and a nice break from pasta. You can eat it as a side dish or like Chris and me, split it in half and down the whole thing.


For a side dish we had a little tin of octopus, with fresh lemon juice squeezed on top. I thought they were delicious but Chris couldn't seem to get over the fact they came out of a sardine tin. The purple outer layer of the octopus slid off on your tongue which he found a little weird and asked, "are you sure these are okay"? I was sure, but the more he asked, the more I wondered. At the end of dinner, there were four pieces left in the dish and we were full. With Chris' question bouncing around my head, on my way to do some dishes, I considered covering them with foil to eat for lunch the next day but instead I popped open the garbage can, slid the remaining octopus in, and the lid slammed shut.


I'm so sorry little octopus, it's not you, it' me.

Jamie Oliver's Whole Baked Cauliflower with Tomato and Olive Sauce


1 red onion, peeled and sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large head of cauliflower, outer green leaves discarded, stalk chopped
olive oil
a good handful of black olives, pitted
4 good-quality anchovy fillets packed in oil, drained and sliced
a handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves roughly chopped, stalks finely chopped
2 14 oz. cans of chopped plum tomatoes
red wine vinegar
a pot with a lid large enough to cook a whole cauliflower in


Add the onion, garlic and chopped cauliflower stalk to some olive oil and fry for ten minutes until softened with a little color. Add the olives, anchovies and parsley stalks and fry another couple minutes. Add the tomatoes, then half fill a can with water and add to the pot along with a good swig of red wine vinegar. Stir and break up tomatoes into small bits, bring to a boil.


Gently push the cauliflower into the sauce, half in half out, drizzle with olive oil, cover and cook on low heat for 50 minutes. (I cooked it about 30 which almost seemed too much so use your judgement.) Serve and sprinkle with parsley leaves.

Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce from the Wednesday Chef

I have been absolutely useless lately. Last week a heat wave blew through New York with the speed of a slowly rotting cantaloupe and left in its wake a city of zombies and stinky garbage. 

There were days I'd imagine flinging myself in front of a steam roller, finally succumbing to the pavement, my flesh and bones melting into the gleaming black tarmac that had turned to honey in the 100 degree weather. But instead I'd just stagger into another air conditioned establishment to cool my head long enough to see straight, and then return to the undulating heat outside. 

As you can imagine, food was the last thing on my mind,  and as our air conditioner blew a dainty stream of cool air into our room, turning on a hot appliance seemed like torture. Also, the fridge was empty except for a few ingredients that required heat, including a package of frozen grass fed chuck that I'd bought on an impulse the weekend before thinking maybe I'd try out a beef stew recipe (what was I thinking?!) so, we ordered in. We got pizza and Indian food and I can't even remember what else. But I did not cook. I couldn't. The cookbooks that I usually draw inspiration from were about as interesting to me as the telephone book, and I figured I'd spare them the heat as well.

Then one day as I was browsing some of my favorite blogs, wondering if I'd ever feel like preparing another meal again, I happened upon a recipe for Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce posted by the Wednesday Chef, that got me drooling and thinking maybe this was worth turning on the toaster oven. It's a simple recipe made with fresh ingredients that takes about 10 minutes of prep work followed by 20 minutes of unfussy baking. This I could handle. You slice open cherry tomatoes, sprinkle them with olive oil and a mixture of breadcrumbs, Parmesan and Pecorino cheese, and garlic, bake them until they're soft and fragrant, mash them up, and then toss with pasta and fresh basil. I made it Thursday night and Chris asked if we could have this every night from now on. Then my mother made it Friday night, and I made it again Saturday night. This one's a keeper. And if you'd like the recipe,  you can just  click here.

I am now on Fire Island enjoying sun, waves and a glorious kitchen. It feels like a reward for enduring the past week, and I am once again dreaming of food. Maybe we'll have beef stew when I get back.

Be Cool.

The Ferry Ride over.