Receta Cheesy Cauliflower
The first issue of Vegetarian Times came just the other day with a glorious looking cauliflower casserole, Mac-And-Cheese Style Cauliflower, gracing the cover. Hubby and I were both drooling over it. I had to make it.
The hardest part was getting the cauliflower into pieces.
The recipe calls for 1/2 cup nutritional yeast. What? Yeast? I had to look it up. Apparently, the yeast is there to provide nutrition--it's different than the yeast you use to make bread. Here's a link to some info on it: Nutritional Yeast. After a little searching, I found it at Whole Foods in the bulk food area. I will say that if the smell of yeast is offensive to you, you can skip this addition (maybe use a little less of the liquid that is called for in the recipe), but I found that the smell totally bakes out and if it adds some nutrition, why not?
The recipe also calls for homemade bread crumbs. While you can sub some Panko crumbs, the homemade ones are really easy. I like to keep a bag in the freezer---whenever I have a day-old baguette, I just swirl the dried out leftovers in my food processor and add it to the bag.
Just spray the bread crumbs with a little cooking spray. I like the olive oil spray. Is it just me or do those fake butter sprays smell funny?
Bake it until it's nicely browned and bubbly.
A couple of observations: to prevent the moisture from the cooked cauliflower from making the sauce too watery, just keep it in the pan after you drain it, and put it back over the heat for a few minutes to dry it out. Thanks to Chris DeNicolo, for that sage advice. I'm also going to saute some chopped onions with the butter the next time I make it. Other than that, the recipe is perfect. It will be made again.