Did Autumn and Winter switch places?!1 Plus, cauliflower sauce.

[UTUSN]

In my neck of the woods, the leaves start falling for sure by October, sometimes earlier. And mostly the cold sometimes dawdles until late December, then hits its peak by January with leftovers in February. And that leaves-falling thing is a huge pile because of the type of messy trees around here. Well, this year the cold, as in January-February cold, arrived in October and has been wet all along, sort of miserable steadily until some kind of a break last week (to restart the next few days). Meanwhile, the messy leaves had not fallen in any substantial way. So, NOW suddenly ALL of the danged messiness has deigned to fall just about all at once. So there are now about 3 to 4 inches of leaves in a carpet, and they aren't "dead," are greenish-yellow. And the wetness is supposed to start again so raking isn't in the picture foreseeably.

So what am I kvetching about?!1 I'm not sure. Raking ain't terribly bad except when the soft-rake (spokes?) get hooked on clingy things. Maybe it's been dreary and gloomy too long and the sun/respite has only lasted a few hours.

So haven't had cauliflower-with-white-sauce in years. Have been craving it. Am a known non-gourmet, have never cooked any sauce at all. Had NO idea what kind of sauce it is, looked at ready-packages and saw "Hollandaise" - is that it?, haven't tried it. Finally did the Googling and found a couple of the SIMPLEST recipes.

Tried this today: Boil cauliflower in SALTED water. (Bought flour for the first time ever.) Melt 4 tbs "butter" and mix in 3 tbs flour, add 1 cup milk, mixing and heating low heat. Add to the cauliflower and bake on moderate (300-350) heat 30 minutes.

Well, the cauliflower was cooked for sure. The sauce was liquidy, not thick, and it was all FAIR, not especially tasty. What's the sauce, what's the SAUCE?!1

[LiberalEsto]

1. Cauliflower

You might try not using salt in the cooking water. Salt can leach the flavor out of things, in my opinion.
Don't overcook it -- take out the cauliflower and drain it as soon as it can be pierced easily with a fork.
Before cooking, break the cauliflower into walnut-sized chunks. This ensures it will cook evenly.

Did you use real butter or some kind of margarine in the sauce?
Real butter will generally taste better.

I use olive oil instead of butter order to reduce animal fats in our diet. I use equal amounts of butter (OR olive oil) and flour -- about 2 tablespoons butter to 2 tablespoons flour. The nice thing about olive oil is that it doesn't need to be heated and melted. Once the flour and butter or oil are well blended, gradually add 1 cup of milk in small amounts, mixing well, until all the milk is incorporated. Then heat, stirring it to keep it from scorching on the bottom, until it starts to boil and thickens.

I add at least a cup of grated reduced fat cheddar cheese to the white sauce, along with a few shakes of celery salt and paprika, pour this over the cauliflower, and bake it for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees. It's nice topped with breadcrumbs or panko crumbs.

If you want plain white sauce, add salt and pepper to taste. You could also add a dash of cayenne pepper.

[UTUSN]

2. Sounds good. I did use a margarine, haven't had real butter or whole milk in 30-40 yrs

And olive oil IS a feature of my family recipes (the cauliflower plus sauce isn't one of them). Yeah, I'm craving the plain sauce, but whatever I did -- everything melted and combined well -- it didn't THICKEN at all and was FAIR in taste without being tasty that I craved.

[femmocrat]

3. I'm not sure why you boiled the cauliflower, then baked it.

When you baked it with the sauce, the liquid from the cauliflower probably diluted the sauce.

I tried to google a recipe for you but didn't find a similar one. Why don't you try the cooking and baking group for suggestions?

Hollandaise sauce is different from white sauce. It has a lemony taste.

[UTUSN]

4. Lemony, eh? Haven't tried it yet, just was going by the picture on the envelop.

As for the double cooking -- boiling, then baking -- actually I wondered about that myself, but I was just following what the internet recipe said. I asked somebody who cooks a lot before doing this and she said the baking-after-boiling was to combine the ingredients (in the sauce?) better.

So I should just boil and concentrate on the sauce. My unresolved issues are thickening the sauce and the taste.

[femmocrat]

5. Cook it like LiberalEsto explained.

Then add the sauce and just heat through. Top with buttered bread crumbs and just brown the top (maybe 10-15 min. at 350-375 degrees total.)

For the sauce... Just add the liquid a little at a time, maybe 1/4 cup at a time keep on low heat, stirring constantly. As the first 1/4 cup thickens a little, then add the next 1/4 cup and so on. Watch it or it will burn on the bottom.