What Kind of Cauliflower are YOU?

If you were a cauliflower, what kind of cauliflower would you be?

Back in the stone age when I was a child, cauliflower was white. Now, they come in colors - orange, green and purple. And they each have their own personalities, don't you think?

For quite some time, I had wanted to do a side-by-side taste test of the three colored varieties of cauliflower, but I hadn't gotten around to it. So when my friends at Frieda's Specialty Produce offered me some, I said, sure, I'll take one of each.

Besides wanting to do a taste test, cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables. A temporary overabundance wasn't a problem.

So, I munched them raw and I sampled them cooked. I imagined that I could taste subtle differences, with the green edging towards broccoli flavor, the orange having essence of squash, and the purple having just a tinge of sharpness.

But, in a blind taste test, I couldn't tell them apart. At all. Maybe there are subtle differences, but perhaps I was completely swayed by the colors.

When it comes to food presentation, color can make a big difference, though. While I love plain white cauliflower, sometimes it just doesn't dress up that plate of chicken and mashed potatoes, so I turn to carrots or a green vegetable. Or ... brightly colored cauliflower.

All three are bright and happy ... but let's look a little closer at their personalities.

I been searchin' for a heart of gold ...

The gold/orange cauliflower is the model of consistency, with its color continuing from outer curds (yes, that's what they're called) all the way to its core. The outer curds were darkest, and there were some slight variations from the outer part of the stem to the center of the stem, but this is the only one of the three where the color was actually more prominent at the center of the stem than at the edges of the stem.

But how does it handle the heat of the kitchen?

Gold cauliflower: raw, cooked, and pickled.

When cooked, the color takes on a slightly more yellow-gold color as opposed to the slightly peachier hue when it's raw, but it's not a stunning conversion. When the cauliflower is faced with the acid test of being pickled, the color gets slightly lighter, but it remains fairly close to the original color.

If you're a gold cauliflower, you're reliable and consistent, and you cope well in every situation. While some folks might say your style is a little cheesy, you prefer to think of yourself as classic. You avoid drama and have a heart of gold. Your friends all say you're a peach.

It ain't easy being green!

Green cauliflower secretly wants to be white. Some of the curds at the edges of the head were a pale creamy yellow-green color, as were a few curds that were in well-shaded spots in the head. The cauliflower is green throughout, fading gently to a very pale green in the center.

The bright green color makes a great accent on a plate when you've got potatoes filling the role of white food and you don't want to move further down the alphabet to beans or broccoli.

Green cauliflower: raw, cooked, and pickled

When faced with the heat of cooking battle, green cauliflower brightens - but don't overcook it or, like many green vegetables, it can join the army-green troops. When it's in a pickle, green cauliflower lightens and loses some of its bright green, taking on tinges of yellow and olive.

If you're a green cauliflower, you're easy to live with, not very flashy, but a little quirky when you've had a few drinks. If you're a green cauliflower you're a true and reliable friend who does not crave the limelight, but is always around to support others.

The Chameleon

Purple cauliflower is the party animal in the group, changing its appearance depending on lighting and situations. From lavender to dark purple when raw - depending on how you're looking at it, the purple cauliflower was the only one whose color was only skin-deep. It had a bright white core.

Purple cauliflower: raw, cooked, and pickled

When heated, purple cauliflower threw off its party colors and darkened considerably to a blue-purple, and it was the only cauliflower of the trio that left color behind in its cooking liquid. The longer the cauliflower was cooked, the more blue it became. Cooking it in the microwave rather than on the stovetop preserved more of the purple color.

When pickled, purple was the life of the party, first fading to a pale lavender, then deepening to a magenta-purple with hints of royal coloring as it cooled. Just like the cooked version, the color of the pickled version varied depending on how long it was in hot liquid and how much acid was in the pickling liquid.

If you're a purple cauliflower, you're the fun one to be around, and ready to adapt to any situation. But while you can be the life of the party, you don't want the notoriety - you're very difficult to photograph. Since your personality is so varied, you can be hard to get to know well and outsiders might think you're fickle or shallow, but your true friends can see through to your pure heart.

So... which cauliflower are you?

Disclaimer: I receive produce from Frieda's on a regular basis, but I am not required to post. I kinda doubt this was on their minds ... hehe.

Almond Espresso Cookies on a Stick

Sometimes my baking is inspired by ingredients. And sometimes it's inspired by gadgets. When I got an adorable pan for making molded flower-shaped cookies with space for adding a stick - well, it got me brainstorming.

M first thought was that they'd be really cute cookies for adorable children with big bows on their heads. But I don't have any children in stock here, with or without bows.

Then I thought they'd be really cute for a spring garden party with a bunch of ladies wearing big floppy garden hats or for a spring baby shower with the flowers decorated in baby pastel colors. But I had no plans for either of those.

Then I stopped thinking about the cute aspect and started thinking about the practical part. A cookie on a stick would be pretty darned good for dunking into hot beverages. Like coffee. So, forget the big bows, floppy hats, or pastels. I went straight for adult flavors - almond and coffee.

As far as the pan, I was really happy that the cookies popped out of the pan. Because that would have been no fun at all.

Almond Espresso Cookies on a Stick

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon almond bakery emulsion
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Spray the cookie wells with baking spray if you want a little extra insurance that the cookies will release.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric and mixer, cream the butter and sugar.

Add the espresso powder, almond bakery emulsion, vanilla extract, and salt and beat until well combined.

Add the flour and mix in. If you're using an electric mixer, it might struggle, so you might want to finish mixing by hand.

Press the cookie dough into the wells of the cookie pan. Add the sticks - I used short wooden skewers - and make sure the sticks are covered by the cookie dough.

Bake at 300 degrees until the cookies are set and lightly browned.

Let the cookies cool before you pop the out of the pan - when they're warm they'll be soft, but they'll harden when they cool.

Decorate, if you like. Or serve as is.

I got the cookie pan from Good Cook in a box of assorted goodies, but I wasn't required to write about it.

5 reasons why you need a portable induction cooktop

I recently received a NuWave Pic2 (Portable Induction Cooktop) to review, and let me say right off the bat that everything they show in the commercials is true.

It heats quickly, you can set a precise temperature, the temperature stays steady, and the cooktop stays relatively cool. It gets a little warm because it's in contact with a the pot that it's heating, but it's not like an open flame.
The controls are simple to figure out, even if you never read the manual, or if you don't use it often.

This would be great for a place where you don't have a stove - a dorm room, for example. I'm sure you can think of other examples.

But, what if you have a fully-equipped kitchen? Why would you want this?

1) An extra burner. It happens to me all the time - I've got potatoes on one burner, a vegetable on another burner, a frying pan on another burner where I'm going to sear a steak, and I've got gravy in process on another burner.

Then I need to work on dessert. And I need a burner to cook the custard, so I start juggling things on and off burners.

This sort of thing happens when I'm just cooking for the two of us, but it's much more likely when I'm cooking for company or working on some sort of blog project. Just like I sometimes wish I could grow a third arm, there are plenty of times I wish I had just one more burner.

2) Cook away from the stove. There are times when I've got something blasting away in the oven, and at the same time I have something on the stove that needs constant stirring. In the winter it's not such a bad thing, but when the temperature heats up, it's nice to be able to move away from the oven.

It's also handy when you've got helpful guests. You can tuck someone out of the traffic pattern, arm them with a spoon, and ask them to stir the pot on the induction burner. Meanwhile, you can manage the rest of the stove without bumping elbows with your helper.

3) Take your cooktop with you. You know what it's like - you're invited to a potluck party and you want to heat your food at the last minute. Your host might not have a spare burner, so you can bring your own heat.

If you want to keep your food warm for the duration of the party, but a slow cooker doesn't make sense, you can set the induction cooktop to a low temperature, and put it on the buffet table with your pot on top. Of course, you need an outlet to plug it in, but you'd need that for a slow cooker too.

If you ever have a need to do a cooking demo, or you want to take your cooktop with you to your getaway cabin, an induction cooktop can travel with you, no matter if you're driving or flying. Some demo venues won't allow an open flame (like a propane burner), so the induction cooktop is a good choice.

3) Set a precise temperature. It's hard to set a precise temperature and keep it there on most standard stovetops. For delicate cooking, the induction cooktop lets you set the temperature for a bare simmer or a keep-warm setting for a sauce. You can crank the heat up to 575 degrees for a fast, hard sear. Whatever you want, you get it.

4) Almost-unattended cooking. I wouldn't suggest that you leave the house with food on the induction cooktop, but you can program it for temperature changes or to turn off after a certain amount of time. You'd still want to monitor the cooking, but it's one less thing that would need to set a timer for.

5) Non-food cooking. Are you crafty? Do you need to heat things for your particular craft? You can move the induction cooktop to your craft room or garage to keep the crafts out of the kitchen.

6) Emergency cooking. It's happened to me. The stove dies, and I have to figure out how to make dinner without it. The last time this happened, I cooked a lot of food in the slow cooker, but the one thing I couldn't manage was pasta - because I couldn't boil water. And while the crockpot was fine for one-pot meals, it got tricky if I wanted to cook several things at once.

With an induction cooktop, it would have been a heck of a lot easier to manage.

7) Sniff-sniff! What's cooking? Most people I know have some foods they like to eat, but they're not so fond of cooking them. Fish is one culprit, but other folks feel the same way about cabbage or liver. If you've ever done any pickling, you know that boiling a vinegar mixture can be pretty strong, too.

So, why not move that cooking to a better location?

8) Got game? If you've got a game room, finished basement, man cave, or bar area, maybe a portable burner makes sense for heating hot chocolate, making snacks, or keeping a pot of mulled wine at serving temperature.

9) Testing induction. If you're thinking about a kitchen remodel and considering a new stove with an induction cooktop, it might be a good idea to try a portable induction cooktop to see if you want to commit to a whole cooktop. The one downside (that I know of) to induction cooking is that not all cookware works.

So, you can test all your cookware and see if it works. And if not, you can decide if you'd be willing to stop using the cookware that doesn't work on induction.

10) The big reason - if you're a blogger - is that you can move your heat source closer to your good light. Many bloggers I know will say that the light in the kitchen isn't good for photos, which makes it difficult to take nice photos of things cooking on the stove.

With the NuWave portable induction cooktop, you can move your cooking to any stable surface near your "good light" area. Even if you're not showing the pot on the stove, it's great if you want photos of something hot in photos - like when you want to show the steam rising from a cup of soup, or when you want to drizzle chocolate sauce at exactly the right temperature.

So that's my top ten - what do you think you'd do with a portable induction cooktop?

I received this product from the manufacturer for the purpose of a review.