I’ve been meaning to tell you about this recipe for a couple weeks now.

Now that their growing season is over (or something), broccoli and cauliflower have been woefully absent from market. This is a travesty; broccoli is my green vegetable crutch: fast, simple, nutritious (or it would be if it weren’t coated in a slick of pesticides), and everyone loves it. But now it’s gone. So the other day (er, week) when I walked through the market and spied some gorgeous heads of cauliflower, I snatched one right up. It would be the next best thing to broccoli.

It sat in my fridge for a couple days while we ate through our supply of carrots and cucumbers and green beans until there were no vegetables left but the single white head of cauliflower. After some thought, I decided I’d cook it till it completely collapsed and then add a bunch of butter and maybe some cheese and serve it over pasta for some white-on-white yum.

But at the last minute, I decided to quick check the web: was there such a thing as cauliflower sauce? Why yes, there was! I skimmed through a few recipes, made a couple simple changes to my plan (I added garlic and pureed the sauce) and voila! I had a creamy pasta sauce! I had planned to add cheese and maybe some milk, but after tasting the
sauce, I couldn’t bring myself to add a single thing.

Upon serving him a heaping plateful of saucy pasta, this is the conversation I had with my lactose-intolerant husband:

Him: Do I need to take a pill with this?

Me: There’s only a little butter, so you’ll probably be okay.

Him: Then what makes it creamy?

Me: (secretive smile)

Him: Seriously! What’s in this!

Me: Eat it and then I’ll tell you.

Him, after a few bites: There’s got to be cheese in here. You’re lying to me.

Me: (giggle) Am not.

Him, after a few more bites: Oh, I get it now!

(Pause.)

Him: Wow. That’s really amazing.

The kids ate it without fussing, though they confessed (the notion
that I had to pull teeth to get their opinion is hysterical) they prefer
a dairy-based mac and cheese. My husband thinks it needs a bacon kick. Even though I omitted the dairy, if I had Parmesan and cream in my kitchen, I would’ve added them both. Also, I think the sauce would be wonderful with roasted tomatoes, olives, and parsley (and cream, oh how I miss cream!). Fresh rosemary would be nice, too. And one more idea: this would make an excellent soup, maybe with some garlicky croutons atop.

No matter how you decide to enhance it (or not), this is a delicious sauce. Every cook should know about it.

Creamy Cauliflower Sauce
Adapted from The Hungry Couple, who, in turn, got it from Pinch of Yum (their blog server is down so I can’t link, sorry). I also looked at Chocolate-Covered Katie’s version.

I used powdered bouillon instead of chicken broth.

2-4 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large head of cauliflower, cut into chunks
2-4 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper
olive oil, optional

Melt the butter and add the garlic. Simmer over low heat until the garlic is tender—but not browned—and the whole house smells like heaven. Remove from heat.

Simmer the cauliflower in the broth until it’s meltingly soft. Add the garlicky butter. Puree vigorously. Season with lots of salt and pepper. Serve over pasta with a drizzle of olive oil to finish.

A youth group was coming down from the states so we had to come up with something for them to do. It took a little thinking but my husband finally had a bright idea: picnic tables! There are benches at Bezaleel and there are tables, but rarely are there tables with benches. Also, there are wide porches at the school, but nowhere to sit down. This has bothered us since the very beginning: we need places to sit and visit! The youth group would be coming with some money for a project, so after running the idea by the people in power, my husband ordered enough wood for four tables.

It only took a couple days to make them and they turned out gorgeous: large, spacious, and back-breakingly heavy (thanks, in part, to the still-wet wood) so that they can’t “walk off.” Nobody here had ever heard of picnic tables before. For lack of a better name, we’ve taken to calling them mesas del campo (country tables).

Everyone is in love with these tables. Like, crazy in love. One of the parents took pictures of them and wondered how much they cost. Kids keep pointing out places on campus where they need a table. In assembly this week, the director had to explain to the students that no one class owns their own table—rather, they are for everyone to share.

This little misunderstanding is probably my fault. After baking class
last week, I told the girls that the tables were really heavy, but if
they could carry one up to their dorm, they could have it. 

By “they” I meant the entire girls’ dorm, but they took my words literally. (Oops.)
 
They strained and squealed and lifted and bit by bit that table moved up the hill.
 
After watching them struggle a bit, my husband took some boards over so they could lift it more easily.
 
We could hear them screaming and laughing the whole way up the road.

There was some money leftover from the visiting group, so my husband is making two more tables this week. (When I called to check on his progress, he reported that he had already made one. It took him two-and-a-half hours.) The school leaders want him to make six more at the end of this month.

Way to hit the ball out of the park, honeyman!

A couple weeks ago, at the end of that particularly excruciatingly sluggish week, my husband and I and a couple friends checked out a local, pick-your-own blueberry farm. Actually, it’s not really open to the public, but we know a person who knows everyone here, so with a little string pulling and name tossing, we got ourselves an appointment with the blueberry bushes.

Turns out, they weren’t the most loaded berry bushes. There were more loaded bushes elsewhere on the property, but they had been picked the day before. Really though, I didn’t much mind. I was picking organic blueberries in Guatemala and that was enough to make me squeal happy. My husband and I picked seven pounds between the two of us, and at US$1.30 a pound, it felt like a steal.

Back home, I got the two pie pastry disks I had made earlier that morning out of the fridge and set about making pie. I almost never make blueberry pie since using up all that painstakingly picked fruit in one fell swoop feels obscenely extravagant. Instead, I usually opt to freeze my berries in one cup bags so that a few berries can flavor a whole bunch of food, such as oatmeal, granola, fruit salads, etc. But with no big freezer, all the berries had to be used up within a couple days, so pie it was. (I did freeze four 1-cup baggies; old habits die hard.)

Despite not being a blueberry pie expert, the pie was a smash hit. I used Elise’s recipe as my template and made adjustments as I went. I worried a little that the filling would be runny, but it was perfect: it held its shape while still being saucy juicy.

For dessert that night, we ate thick wedges of warm blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. It was all I hoped it would be…and more.

Ps. The next day there was this blueberry cobbler and the rest of the ice cream. And the next day there was blueberry baked French toast. And in between there was granola and oatmeal with blueberries.

Blueberry Pie
Minimally adapted from Simply Recipes.

I have no food processor to simplify the pastry-making process, but a perfectly excellent pastry can made with just your own two hands and a bowl (and some measuring cups).

1 recipe (two disks) rich butter pastry
5-6 cups blueberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup flour
½ generous cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
sugar and milk, for top crust

Roll out one of the pastry disks. Use it to line a 9-inch pie pan.

Put the berries in a large bowl. Add the juice and zest and gently toss. Add the flour, sugar, and cinnamon and toss together. Tumble the berries into the pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with the butter.

Roll out the remaining pastry disk. Cut slits in the top. Lid the pie with the pastry. Crimp edges. Brush the top crust with milk and sprinkle liberally with more white sugar.

Bake the pie at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Once the fruit juices begins to bubble over, place the pie on a baking pan to collect the drips. (Don’t do this earlier—you want the bottom crust to get as brown as possible). The pie is done when the crust is deep golden and the berries are bubbling madly. Cool to room temperate (or almost). Serve with vanilla ice cream.