my good friend Watson

Chef Watson and I are becoming quite the buddies. We’ve been chatting and have come to an understanding that we speak different languages but manage to communicate in a rather visceral manner where food is concerned. I still don’t know what s/he means by ‘spray pan with nonstick chili pepper’, but we are learning to get along. It reminds me of the time my sis visited me while I was studying in Eastern Canada. She met a lovely man and they were quite smitten but neither could speak the other’s language. They figured it out.

When I returned from the East Coast a couple of weeks ago I was met with my two volunteer cherry tomato plants bursting (literally, the little buggers were splitting) with tomatoes. We’ve now had cherry tomatoes on and in everything so I gave Watson a crack at cherry tomatoes and a beautiful cauliflower that I picked up at the shop. S/he came back with a pretty interesting mix of spices to complement the veggies…things I never would have thought of myself. And it was delicious. But if you look closely you will see the kind of, um, peculiarities s/he displays. The recipe is called roasted cauliflower, but the only vegetable ingredient listed is tomatoes. I understand my friend Watson so have made adjustments.

Watson’s Recipe

My Modifications

The results

It was truly absolutely delicious. The changes I made to the original recipe (aside from adding the cauliflower) were minimal. I doubled the recipe as I had way more veggies than were called for and I used olive oil instead of butter as we aren’t eating butter at my house right now. Other than that, the spice combination was what made this remarkably interesting. Chef Watson still has quite a few bugs to work out, but we’re having fun together. And doesn’t that cauliflower look amazing?

Happy cooking,
Leslie