Adventures in Cauliflower: Curried Cauliflower & Chickpea Bake

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I loathe cauliflower.  LOATHE IT!!!!  I'm stunned by the number of people who are just utterly bewildered by my hatred of this vegetable that looks like a nuclear bomb explosion, to me that was nature's way of saying, "Do not eat this, it will literally melt your very soul."  Most people I know actually like it, in fact they love it.  Since I'm willing to admit that the rest of the world may not be completely out of it's collective mind (though I'm still skeptical), I decided to make this the week I give cauliflower a second and possibly even a third chance.  I asked Crop Share members to send their cauliflower recipes my way, and wouldn't you know I only heard from two members, and both of them said they too disliked cauliflower!  There ARE more like me, I knew it!  And funny how all these cauliflower lovers didn't flood my e-mail with their recipes, hmmm.  I call shenanigans!  But I had made a pledge, so I chose a few of their recipes to test out and tonight began my first step in this week's Adventures in Cauliflower.

The minute I pulled that cauliflower out of the fridge, I turned into Grumpy Cat.

Caulifl....no.

The sight, the smell, the texture, the whole thing just creeped me out, and I'm pretty sure I chopped that head of cauliflower with a Grumpy Cat expression plastered to my face.  Bleh.

But I pushed on and tonight's Adventures in Cauliflower was to make a Curried Cauliflower & Chickpea Bake that was shared with me by Crop Share member Liz Candelario.  I love curry and am pretty sure I could eat anything if it had curry on it, so this HAS to work, no?!  Here's the recipe and then scroll all the way to the bottom for my reaction...

Curried Cauliflower & Chickpea Bake

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp garlic, minced
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 can (14.5 oz) fire roasted tomatoes (I use Muir Glen)
1 1/2 Tbsp curry powder
1 can (15.5 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 head cauliflower, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a skillet heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Saute garlic and onion until onion begins to just slightly brown on the edges, taking care not to burn your garlic.  Stir in fire roasted tomatoes and curry powder and simmer for an additional minute.

Spread cauliflower and chickpeas evenly in the bottom of a baking dish and toss with just a bit of olive oil to prevent anything sticking to the bottom of the dish.  Pour curried tomato mixture over top and toss to full combine.

Bake for 40 minutes at 375, stirring about twice during the baking time.




My reaction...

Like Ron Swanson's feelings about all vegetables, I am still wildly unconvinced of the merits of cauliflower.  I was able to eat a small portion, and everything BUT the cauliflower was absolutely delicious.  Still not a fan of cauliflower, so maybe the next test recipe will do the trick.

Bleh, where's the mouthwash?