I’ve been dying to try roasted cauliflower again forEVER, but it’s been pretty pricey around these parts of late. Anyway, today organic cauliflower happened to be on sale at Donald’s Market–a place I LOVE but, holy crap, if you don’t know where to find what you’re looking for, you’re in big trouble: seriously, you can be standing right in front of, say, carob chips and ask a sales associate where the carob chips are. He’ll direct you to the sales-associate-in-charge-of-all-things-carob, who will, in turn, direct you to carob spread, followed by carob powder, and then inexplicably to carrot soup. You’ll say, no, I said carob, not carrot, and he’ll shrug, and then eventually, he’ll say, no, we don’t carry carob chips, and leave you on your own.

…then you’ll find carob chips yourself, but you won’t have the energy to go back to tell him (and even if you do, he’ll shrug and say, oh).

Anyway, I love the place in spite of all that, and today organic cauliflowers were two for five bucks!!  After scouring about a thousand recipes, I eventually made a very simple one,  which is kind of a conflation of a number of recipes:

Roasted Maple-Sriracha Cauliflower

Whisk together in a big bowl:

2 TBS. olive oil

2.5 TBS. sriracha

2.5 TBS. maple syrup

Toss in three cups of cauliflower florets and coat well.

Bake on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper at 375 for 25 minutes.

I forgot my Thug Kitchen cookbooks at the cabin, so I hunted down the recipe for their Maple Tofu online….but I realized partway through that it was not in fact the Thug recipe, but another (equally good) recipe called Spicy Maple Baked Tofu, which can be found here.

I was using puffy tofu, however, so I didn’t have to go through all the rigamarole of squeezing out the water. I just cut the puffy tofu squares in half and tossed them in the marinade. I then slid them into the oven at 350 for 15 minutes, and they were DELICIOUS–super crispy and spicy-sweet. Puffy tofu doesn’t need to be marinated if you cut it in half because it’s so porous and really hangs onto the sauce.

I served the roasted cauliflower and spicy baked tofu on a bed of salad dressed with the farmhouse dip thinned out with a bit of almond milk (something suggested by Thug Kitchen to create a ranch dressing). The meal was a surprisingly huge hit with James (especially the tofu), but I was a bit disappointed that the cauliflower wasn’t crispier.

Anyway, here’s the gigantic salad: romaine and baby spinach/kale, topped with tomatoes, shredded carrots, cucumbers and green onions, roasted cauliflower and baked tofu.

Weirdly, the dogs are crazy about romaine and kept begging for bits! Mind you, these poor dogs are a bit hard done by since we started on the plan six weeks ago.

Now, the salads were HUGE, and took (seriously) about half an hour to eat. Nevertheless, a few minutes after finishing his, James said, I think I’ll make a sandwich. HA!