Cauliflower Steaks with Mixed-Herb Pesto

This is a slight change from a recipe in the L.A. Times.  Their sauce was a north African spread called chermoula, which I had to look up because even spell-check doesn't recognize it yet.  By the time I decided to make pesto instead, I had already bought the cilantro and parsley, figuring I could spread it over several recipes like the Summer Rolls.  So I decided to toss those into the food processor with leek greens, basil flowers, and a bit of my scrap garden celery's leaves to make a mish-mashed pesto.

I think this is only the second time I've done cauliflower steaks.  They're super easy, but do leave you with leftover cauliflower ends.  You can blanch and freeze those, or use them later in the week.  I'm getting better at batch cooking, to follow the current chapter theme.  You have to meal plan a way to use everything you've bought for the week.  That can either be in another recipe or prepping it for the freezer or canning.  I've never done pickled cauliflower, which can be made with a quick stovetop brine.  You don't have to process it, just stick it in the fridge for a week before using.  It was tempting, but I decided to roast it up with an extra carrot I bought for the next meal.

The biggest downside of cauliflower steaks is that they aren't meat.  There's cheese and nuts in pesto, but I wanted another protein/iron.  I had half a cup of quinoa in the pantry to round out the meal.  The original recipe used couscous and kept the whole thing vegan.  Yeah, I need cheese with cauliflower to make it palatable, so no.

2 heads cauliflower
olive oil
salt and pepper
*4 C assorted soft-leaf herbs such as basil, parsley, cilantro, etc
*2 cloves garlic
*2 Tb pine nuts or walnuts, lightly toasted
*Parmesan to taste, about 1/4 C grated
*1 Tb lemon juice, optional

1.  Preheat the oven to 400º.  Trim leaves and stems off the bottom of the cauliflower.  Cut heads in half through the thickest part of the stem.  Then cut 1"-thick slabs.  Do whatever you want with the outsides.

2. Place cauliflower slabs on a rimmed baking sheet and brush both sides with olive oil.  Lightly season with salt and pepper.  Bake 15 minutes, flip, and continue to roast until a fork can easily pierce the stem, about another 15 minutes.

3.  While the cauliflower is roasting, get out the food processor.  Run nuts and garlic into a paste.  Add herbs, lemon juice, and the first 1/4 C of parmesan and run into a paste.  The lemon juice isn't totally necessary, but it does help to preserve the color of the herbs and provide a counterpoint to the oil.

4.  Taste and add salt, garlic, and/or parm as necessary.  Set the processor running again and drizzle in olive oil until desired consistency is reached.  I like mine as more of a dip than a sauce, so it was still pretty thick.

5.  Serve cauliflower with pesto and some kind of grain or starch for a vegetarian meal, or chicken or fish if you're having it with meat.

Difficulty rating :)