I'll be honest, until I started incorporating more vegan cooking into my every day diet, I didn't cook with cauliflower that much. Yes, I know, how odd, a vegetarian who never cooked with cauliflower much until she tried to vegan, how bizarre. ;) This is what I *love* about eating vegan dishes without actually going vegan (besides the obvious benefits of eating less dairy) - it's opened me up to vegetables & spices that I've rarely cooked with before and I probably wouldn't have experimented with were it not for my many failed attempts to go vegan! ;)
This dish, or one of my many variations (seen below), is one of my favorite "cool-weather" dishes. It's a pretty safe bet that when cauliflower is on sale & the temperature is regularly below 45 degrees, I'll be preparing this for my family. That is, if I LET them have any; I've been known to eat the majority of this myself! ;)
And yes, I am aware that it's not "cool-weather" right now, at least not in NH where it's in the low-mid 70's, I just had a craving for it is all. ;)
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a large, oven-proof casserole dish, combine the following:
Ingredients:
1 large head of cauliflower cut into small, bite-sized pieces
1 yellow onion, diced
1 medium sweet potato, peeled & cut into small, bite-sized pieces
1 small head of garlic (4-5 cloves), minced (or less if you're not as fond of garlic as I)
Set aside 1/2 cup of organic raisins to be added later.
In a small mixing bowl, combine the following well with a wisk:
Ingredients for Sauce:
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 tbsp of your favorite mustard (I usually use a spicy mustard, but all I have in the house is yellow...)
1 tbsp local honey (vegan option: 1 tbsp vegan sweetener of your choosing)
Pour sauce over the veggies in the casserole dish &, using a spatula or cooking spoon, combine well.
Cover the casserole dish.
Bake for 1 hour with the cover on, stirring every 20 minutes.
Remove the cover, stir in the 1/2 cup of organic raisins, stir well, & bake for another 10 minutes withOUT the cover. This gets the veggies nice & toasty on the edges.
Remove from oven. Stir well. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Stir & serve warm!
If you hadn't noticed, many of my recipes don't call for salt & pepper. While *I* have weened myself off of adding salt to everything, my husband "needs" to add salt to everything! If anyone in your family is like mine, I recommend keeping a pepper grinder full of sea salt as well as a pepper grinder full of, what else, peppercorns, close-at-hand for those salt-crazy family members to add on after the dish is served. This will cut down on their "excess salt" consumption since the dish doesn't have any in it already. ;)
Variations on the veggies:
Try red/purple or sweet vidalia onions instead of yellow onions.
Add a few chopped up carrots instead of the sweet potato.
Instead of adding a 1/2 cup of raisins for the last 10 minutes of baking, try a 1/2 cup of currants or other dried fruit, or a chopped apple or pear (if you chose the chopped apple or pear, you'll want to add it 20 minutes before the end of cooking to give the fruit time to cook through).
Variations on the sauce:
Instead of white wine vinegar, try balsamic, red wine, or apple cider vinegar.
Experiment with different types of mustard - my favorite is spicy brown mustard, but honey dijon, spicy dijon, or horseradish would be great too.
Add the juice of 1/2 lemon or lime to change up the flavors.
Happy cooking! Have fun! & Enjoy! :)
