Mash-up

This is a mash-up from last year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, an autumn visit home, and a handful of other get-togethers. (I forgot to post it when it was originally written.)

Max Fischer from Rushmore and Maggie the Cat from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

At home over Thanksgiving

Whole Roasted Tandoori Cauliflower

Tandoori spice blend

I'm always trying new cauliflower recipes because I mostly find it a bit underwhelming. That's what tempted me to try whole roasted Tandoori cauliflower from My New Roots. It had great potential, but I wasn't impressed with the end product. Perhaps I used too much of the marinade, but the cauliflower was too spicy to eat, and the interior was just steamed cauliflower. Perhaps the mint chutney would've helped, but I'm dubious.

Garlic

Not wanting to chuck an entire head of cauliflower into the trash, I attempted to transform it into a soup, adding more yogurt and Neufchatel (my attempts to insert a circumflex over the A were futile) cheese. It's still fairly spicy, and I ended up with a gigantor batch of it, so some of it's still living in my freezer. After I finish the soup, I'm going to try Going Cave Woman's recipe for crunchy cauliflower. It caught my eye on Pinterest, and I'm intrigued. It's even supposed to be low in calories.

Indian Dinner

Saag paneer

I used the saag paneer recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Since I ran out of spinach from the garden, I substituted kale, which was surprisingly good. I might use it instead in the future. Also, I omitted the heavy cream because it didn't seem necessary.

Saag Paneer
serves: 4-6

Ingredients
1-in. cube of ginger (peeled and coarsely chopped)
3-6 garlic cloves
1/2 to 1 hot green chili, sliced roughly
paneer
salt
1/4 tsp. garam masala
1/8 tsp. cayenne
6 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1.5 lbs. spinach
3 Tbsp. heavy cream