Sunday, October 31, 2021

A Simple, Festive Halloween Treat + A Favorite Cauliflower Side Dish And How To Turn it Into A Meal

If words like fondant and crumb coat give you pause, but you like the idea of the occasional festive decorating project, you're in luck. These owl cupcakes, which I learned from Cup of Jo several years ago, require neither a piping bag or tip nor a turn table or icing spatula. Best of all, it's an exercise little people can partake in without too much supervision.

The original recipe calls for chocolate cupcakes and chocolate buttercream, but because my children don't love chocolate (I know: weird), we now always make snowy owls, using this one-bowl buttermilk birthday cake recipe with whipped cream-cream cheese frosting.

Have a Happy Halloween, Everyone! 👻🎃💀🎃👻🎃💀

Snowy Owl Cupcakes

Here's the chocolate version:

A Favorite Cauliflower Side Dish + The Sheet Pan Dinner It Can Become

Earlier this week in my farm share newsletter, I wrote about this favorite cauliflower recipe. It's a dish I make throughout the fall and winter for both its simplicity and flavor.

In short, you throw cauliflower, onion, unpeeled garlic cloves, and thyme onto a baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes; then you add parmesan and roast for 10 minutes more. The result? Tender and golden cauliflower, shrouded with caramelized onions and crisp, nutty parmesan. But the best part is the whole unpeeled cloves of roasted garlic, which you can spread across bread like butter — heaven!

This cauliflower makes a wonderful side dish for all sorts of things, but it also can be turned into a meal. One of my favorite ways to do this is to make a simple spice mix of cumin, coriander, smoked paprika and cayenne. Toss half of it with the cauliflower and half of it with boneless, skinless chicken thighs. (You can use breasts if you wish.)

After the cauliflower roasts for 30 minutes, add the chicken to the pan and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so. By the end, just as in the original recipe, the cauliflower and onions caramelize, becoming meltingly tender and irresistibly sweet. As the chicken thighs cook, moreover, they release their juices, which seep into the vegetables, making them even tastier.

I like to serve this mix of smoky, spicy chicken and vegetables with naan and a lemony yogurt sauce. It's maybe my favorite sheet pan dinner. Hope you love it as much as I do.

If you're feeling ambitious, you could make the naan, but if you can get your hands on the Stonefire naan, sold at most grocery stores, it's really good. I love the mini size (pictured below), which you can warm quickly in a toaster.