Last Friday was my 17 year anniversary!  My husband signed us up for a dinner/cooking class to celebrate at Sur La Table!   Although my husband isn’t interested in taking a cooking class, he was pulled in by the fact that we would be eating steak and scallops for dinner.  I thought it was fabulous! I learned so much from the chef that night (including blasting cauliflower, which I’ll explain below), but my husband wasn’t impressed.  He figured for the price we paid, he’d be getting a king sized meal.  Instead the portions were very small (3 scallops, 3 slices of the steak, etc.) and he left asking if we could go out for a burger! Poor guy.  The food however, was amazing!

OK- so ironically, my favorite part of the meal was the “Blasted Cauliflower”.  We took chopped cauliflower and cooked it at a super high temperature for 10 minutes.  475 degrees!  Yes, 475.   Then, after it was blasted, we stirred a vinaigrette onto the cauliflower we had made that included oil, salt, pepper, shallots, dijon mustard, lemon juice, and sugar.    It was divine! I literally have never enjoyed cauliflower as much as I had that night.  In fact, I went home and re-made it the very next day. I think the texture of the blasting was perfect for my taste.  It wasn’t mushy or too crunchy.  It was right in between.

But then, I decided to try it with the kids using instead a dressing I make a lot by Dr. Fuhrman.  We used a Blood orange, cashews, and vinegar for our dressing, and the pink color we got was so pretty.

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Blood oranges are only available in North America right now!  In fact, you should get one before they are gone. They are a delicious mix between an orange and a grapefruit.  We simply blended the orange sections with the cashews and vinegar (full recipe below), and got our dressing.

Then, we worked on the cauliflower.  Lining a cookie sheet with chopped cauliflower, we drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on the veggie and gave it a quick stir to coat all the pieces.  Then, like I said above, we cooked in a preheated oven at 475 for about 10 minutes. Watch closely!  You want to take them out when the tips start to brown.

Then, we combined the two- the dressing was poured over the cooked cauliflower and given a stir until all the cauliflower was coated with our pink dressing.

And that’s it! Simple and delicious.  It would be perfect for Valentine’s day dinner if you can still find the blood oranges!

If you need more cauliflower ideas, we also love our Cauliflower Popcorn!