Cauliflower from my garden

 

I am so excited about my Cauliflower!  Can you believe this!  We grow a garden every year, but I have never had success with cauliflower, broccholi, or cabbage.  No cabbage this year, but the other two yes!  The cauliflower is ready to pick, and I decided I need to post this.  I cannot believe that we grew this!  It is so cool.  Today, I blanched them and put them in freezer bags and in the freezer for winter eating.  This is a huge hurdle for us to be able to grow such great looking and tasting cauliflower. 

You know about a month ago, I was pretty much giving up on these plants.  They were in a row in the garden, and just tall plants doing nothing really.  So I started taking some of the plants and putting them in my window boxed for fall display.   I thought, "Well, if they can't give me a head, then I can use the plant for decoration in my fall window boxes."  As I was planting them, dug them from the row in the garden, I saw a little start of a cauliflower head on one of the plants.  Mmmm, so I took that one that was starting a head and put it in a pot and in the greenhouse.  Well, maybe I'll get one head this year, I thought.

I planted at least one plant in each of the front flower boxes.  (you know I got this idea from being in France last year in a cute little town that had the most beautiful fall window boxes you have ever seen) 

 

Then as the weather started to cool down, heads started appearing on almost all the cauliflower plants, and within a month here we are with these incredible big heads!  Shows you what I know.  This is on the plant list for next year for sure! 

 

Success!

 

 

 

Maybe I have a tiny bit of my mom's green thumb in me after all.  Well, not just me, Dana too.  He does all the tilling and hard work in the garden, I just plant and weed.  I should talk to the plants too.

 

I also love white.  White, White, White.  So I teamed the mini pumkins from the garden with the cauliflower heads for a fun photo.  What more can I say.  I love it all in white.

 

I made a Cauliflower Garlic with Parmesan with one of these tonight for dinner.  Mmmm it was so good.  Here is the recipie.

 

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil over medium-high.  Add 4-7 florets of a head of cauliflower trimmed and cut, and cook until the cauliflower begins to brown, about 3 minutes.  Add 1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced and cook, stirring occationally, until the garlic begins to brown.  Season with salt and ground pepper, you can add 1/2 tsp of red-pepper flakes.  Take off the heat, I put on chopped lettuce, and sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the top.  

 

This is so delish!

 

 

 

Ciao,

 

Robin