Cauliflower Faux Gratin

The problem is that it's Super Bowl Sunday, which means two things. First, I'm going to eat like crap today. Second, all of my dishes are dirty because I spent the morning cooking (more on this in another post). So I decided to make some sort of vegetable based dish to make sure I have something good in me (though both the things I'm bringing are healthy, duh).

I looked around my fridge and had an old head of cauliflower, some spinach that desperately needed to be eaten, and some left over green onions from something I made this morning. Done.

I put the spinach in a dish and nuked it for 2.5 minutes until it wilted. Then I put 2 cups of soymilk in the the microwave (which I HATE using, but I had to because all of my pots and pans were in the dishwasher) and nuked it for about 3 minutes until it got pretty hot and barely started to boil. I took a small container of cold water (a couple of tablespoons?) and mixed in roughly a tablespoon of cornstarch. I didn't measure because my measuring spoons were all dirty and because I like to live dangerously. I added the milk to the spinach with some salt and pepper, a large squirt of mustard, two tablespoonsish of nutritional yeast, and the cornstarch mixture. I put it in the microwave for 3:33 (too lazy to push any other buttons, seriously) and stirred it every minute.

Meanwhile, I dismantled the cauliflower and put it in a large rectangular Pyrex baking dish and sprinkled the green onions on top. I then started to pick them out thinking that I'd put them on at the end instead. But that lasted about 2 seconds when I realized it wasn't worth the effort. So I poured the nuked cheesish mixture over the cauliflower/green onions. It wasn't liquidy enough so I just added a cup of soymilk and didn't even bother mixing it together. Popped it all in a 400 degree oven and waited patiently.

I guess it cooked for about 20 minutes and I took it out of the oven to stir it. I suggest using two oven mitts- don't try to be a badass and take it out with one hand. I came pretty close to dropping it. Because I didn't stir it initially, some of the cauliflower looked a little dry and unhappy. Next time I'll definitely stir it before putting it in the oven.

After another 20ish minutes I took it out to stir it again. The cauliflower started to get mushy but still needed more time. It was still soupier than I wanted and I debated adding some flour to thicken it up...guess I didn't need that extra cup of soymilk afterall. I put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes or so until the sauce thickened up.

And the end result? Not too bad! It clearly wasn't smothered in cheddar cheese, but the taste was far from unpleasant. Would I make it again? Yeah! Would I let someone else try it? I think I might. Jennilicious would definitely eat it, but then again we both pretty much eat anything. Next time I'd like to add some very finely chopped onion and garlic and some more spinach, but otherwise it seems like a go. It might be nice with some homemade bread crumbs or whole wheat couscous on top, too.