Cauli-Flower Power

Moving back home after a year of uni is a strange feeling.  Mainly because your room initally resembles the stock room of a department store, with only a foot wide path from bed to door as hangers, shoes, folders and stray electrical cables grope at you from their various "organised" piles.  Suddenly you are no longer your own woman - see you later independence, welcome back chaotic family life and routines. 

Musings aside, moving back home has practical and food-related concerns.  There are the obvious high points: the fridge is usually stocked, it's nice food, and it's free.  Sharing cooking responsibilities is also not something I mind - it is actually quite fun to cook someone else's, usually high quality, ingredients.  Those things you never bother buying at uni? There they all are in your kitchen at home: all spice, ginger, fish sauce, mini rolls, nice chopped tomatoes not the cheap ones...

However, I do not delve into the kitchen with unrestrained delight at first opportunity as you might imagine.  I hover, uncertainly, on the fringes of an extremely well-rehearsed and competent cooking routine.  Making enough food for five is no joke and my parents seem to have it down to a tee - I have come to realise that even when they say they have no idea what's for tea - secretly they do.  They know exactly what is in the cupboard down to the last tin of coconut milk, bag of flour or packet of noodles. 

Anyway the crux of the matter is that going from knowing the contents of my little bottom drawer in the fridge at uni, or my cupboard, to being one step out of the loop at home is a tricky little transfer that takes some getting used to.

As obstacles go this one is admittedly not too major. But it was still with trepidation that I approached the fridge tonight, and plucked from it a cauliflower.  I've had my eye on this cauliflower for a while, seeing in it the potential for a meal that the other nameless veg in the fridge seemed to lack.

Cauliflower Cheese is one of those meals which is either really rank or really nice.  Boil the cauliflower for too long and let your sauce go lumpy and voila - you serve up a bowl of tasteless, grey mush.  Here is how to make it taste nice:

Boil the cauli in a pan of salted water.  Not for too long, check with sharp knife until firm but not soft.
Melt a medium sized knob of butter in a pan.
Add some flour - beat with wooden spoon until a soft dough (called a roux) is formed.
Take off heat.
Add milk slowly, whisking with a fork every time you add it.
When you have a pale, liquidy mixture, return to heat.
Add salt, lemon juice, tsp wholegrain mustard, a handful of cheese (parmesan or cheddar).
Stir continuously until sauce thickens. Take off heat when resembles sauce.
Drain cauli and place in open oven tray.
Cook pasta.
Cover pasta and cauli in the sauce.
Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake in oven for 5 mins.

Something extra....
Fry little pieces of bacon and mix into the cheese sauce.

Something to remember when cooking for the family is quantities. I have underestimated that far too many times, as we sit round folornly slicing the last roast potato into two to make it last longer, it is hard not to feel the blame.

Overall though, cooking at home should be enjoyable.  Use the time to practice your old favourites, try out a few new ones, and in the least (cauliflower) cheesey way - have fun.