Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon and Garlic

First off, I owe you an apology.  I fully intended on sharing the recipe with you that I made the other night for dinner.  Sadly, it didn’t turn out to be as amazing as I had anticipated.  My husband is a very gracious eater.  If he likes something, he tells you.  If I ever make something and have to utter the words, “So, do you like it?”, I know it’s just “Meh”.  So, I’m sorry I don’t have an exciting, easy dinner to throw your way today.  I do, however, have an easy and delicious side dish.  In fact, it’s what we had with the “Meh” chicken I made the other night!

I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t like cauliflower.  If you are one of them, I would really appreciate it if you’d just try this recipe.  I’m going to sound like your mother, but try it!  You might like it!  After I discovered how much better roasted cauliflower tastes than regular, plain old steamed or covered-in-cheese cauliflower, I’ve never gone back.  I roast almost every vegetable and cauliflower is one of my family’s favorites.  The kids eat it like popcorn!

First, just chop up a head of cauliflower and lay the pieces out on a cookie sheet.

Then, it’s as simple as mincing up a little garlic, juicing a half of a lemon and grabbing your bottle of olive oil.  Just sprinkle the cauliflower with a bit of olive oil, the lemon juice and the garlic bits.  Then, add a little salt and pepper.  Using your hands, toss the cauliflower around the pan and coat it with the oil mixture.  At this point, it’s ready to pop in the oven.

My only suggestion would be to try to make sure most of those little garlic pieces are attached to some cauliflower.  You’re going to roast this at a pretty high temperature, so any garlic just sitting on the cookie sheet is likely to burn.  If you don’t get it all off the cookie sheet, don’t worry.

You’ll roast the cauliflower for about 30 minutes.  Stir it around once during the roasting, to move that garlic around a bit, and even up the browning.  When it’s done, sprinkle it with a little shredded parmesan cheese and call the kids for dinner.  You’ll have yourself a side of perfectly nutty, roasted cauliflower and maybe, a surprising new favorite vegetable.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH LEMON AND GARLIC

Adapted from Simply Recipes