Vegan. Once a word scorned, is now a liberating philosophy. Veganism force-challenges creativity. That is one of its most pleasant surprises. Your brain’s neurons actually seems to exist on a different upward level than they did before.
Walmart. Just killing time while my daughter bought things; probably really wanted to stay in the car.
Spontaneous purchase… Summer squash, a little pricey at $1.49 a pound, but it was art today, gorgeous, unblemished and perfectly formed; all it needed was an Impressionist and a paint brush. I began to salivate. I bought three which would later total $3.26.
Since I’d already committed to a long wait in line, (it is that time of year), I walked down the cold display case where they mostly offer already-prepped items. While looking at some cold snap peas, I saw they had dropped the price of small diced cauliflower down to $1.99 a bag. Grabbed it.
I began to figure how I could squeeze these into a meal and still eat in an hour and a half. I remembered hearing a radio ad about casseroles being thrown together and decided that was what I’d do.
In a metal pan (aluminum) I laid out the entire bag of cauliflower pieces. They completely covered the bottom. Next I cut the summer squash in circular slices, about a three/eight’s inch thick, and covered the cauliflower with single pieces. I did not overlap any, and tried (like solving a puzzle) to fit them in so the entire surface was covered. Seeing my fridge was over-inventoried on carrots, I dumped the contents of a leftover bag of baby carrots and spread them evenly over the squash. I also had half a can of stewed tomatoes so to get rid of them, I spread them across the top as well.
By now I had layered cauliflower, summer squash, baby carrots and canned tomatoes. What else? I decided to make it gluten free, and using two opened-boxes of rice flour that had sat too long a time on my shelf, I covered the top. I thought it would then lack texture, so shook out a fine layer of grits over one half of the pan, and white basmati rice over the other. My plan originally was to let the water from the veggies leach out and cook the dried ingredients. However it looked like that wouldn’t work, so remembering the ironclad rule, (twice as much water as any dried product), I added filtered water over the casserole until it covered all, like an ancient sea covering early civilization. Then foiled it and put into a 450 degree oven’.
Set the timer for an hour and forgot about it.
It turned out pretty amazing, actually. I sprung it on two non-vegans with no introduction, and got ringing reviews. I was puzzled by two things. One, there was a creamy cheese sauce that was actually pretty good (would compare it to a melted Gouda), and two, there were no pieces of cauliflower anywhere in the casserole. It took three days for me to put those two together. I asked a vegan friend if she had ever used cauliflower to make cheese. No, she laughed, but she did use it once to make cheese sauce, like for macaroni.
Wow… What a great accident.
Downside? There was a surprising downside. The cauliflower when cooked gave off an odor that smelled like light farts once you took off the foil.. But if you were already in the zone and acclimated, you couldn’t smell it, but everyone walking in from the outside, did make that comment, including myself much later when I came back in. Despite that, this odd casserole tasted amazing, .