Fancy Foodie Friday: Roasted Cauliflower, Sirloin Tip Roast, and Caramelized Onion Pasta

Feel like a treat after a long week? Splurge on a special ingredient? In the mood to spend a little longer in the kitchen? Got a hot date to impress with your culinary prowess? Check out the recipes in our ongoing Fancy Foodie Fridays series. These recipes might be a little too complex, time-consuming, or expensive for the every day, but are a nice challenge or treat for a fancy evening in. This is the first post in the series.


I’m a big fan of cooler weather. Many of the things I like best in life (soup, hot tea, fuzzy blankets, fuzzy socks, a lit fireplace, etc.) are best-suited to cooler weather. It’s also the perfect time of year for roasting. I live in Buffalo, NY, and this week is the first week it’s gotten nice and cold, so I’m celebrating by turning on the oven!

Roasting is my favorite way to prepare vegetables. It’s well-suited to my favorite veggies, which tend be the roots—cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, parsnips—but I’ve also found it works well for things like broccoli and asparagus. Asparagus especially gets these delicious crispy tips and turns very nutty in taste. Denser veggies like carrots or rutabagas take longer.

Roasted Cauliflower

Prep time: 20 min. Cook time: 15-20 min.

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
(US Customary)

1 head cauliflower (or other desired vegetable)

3 T olive oil

½ tsp sea salt (coarse)

½ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp pepper

½ tsp thyme*

½ tsp oregano*

Special Equipment: None.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Roasting vegetables works best with a very hot oven.

2. Chop the vegetables—in this case, a head of cauliflower. The smaller the pieces, the faster they’ll cook. Arrange in a baking pan (I cover mine with foil—less cleanup afterwards).

3. Drizzle with olive oil and desired seasonings. I often try to use slightly better-quality olive oil, since it provides a lot of the flavor. My favored seasonings are usually sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and perhaps an herb like basil or savory. You could season it any way you like, though—chili pepper, add a dash of cayenne if you want it spicy, curry powder, etc. You could also chop fresh garlic and add it to the pan (don’t chop it too fine, though, or it will burn rather than roasting).

*I used these herbs because they matched the seasoning on the meat I was cooking, see below.

 4. Put it in the oven. Poke it with a fork after 15 minutes to see if the cauliflower is soft. My oven usually takes more like 20 minutes. I also advise leaving it in the oven until it starts to brown a bit, the caramelized areas have great flavor. If you’d rather your vegetable be a bit firmer, though, you can take them out of the oven a few minutes early.

The above recipe is what I generally follow, but today I’m doing things a little differently, because I’m also cooking a beef roast in the oven. A couple of years ago, I was looking at the sales for my local grocery store, and I saw that they were selling sirloin tip roasts at about 50% off. I looked up the cut of meat online and found that it was pretty lean, so I decided to give it a shot. I found a recipe online for a delicious rub and it’s become a mainstay recipe for me (well, when the roast is on sale). Both the beef and cauliflower were cooking at 350 degrees; the cauliflower took about 30 minutes to roast at that temperature.

Herbed Sirloin Tip Roast

Prep time: 2 hrs. Cook time: 1-1.5 hrs.

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:
(US Customary)

1 sirloin tip roast, about 3 pounds

½ cup dry red wine

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp Cajun seasoning

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper

½ tsp dried thyme

¼ tsp dried oregano

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp onion powder

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

1 T olive oil

Special Equipment: Meat Thermometer.  

Instructions:

1. About two hours before roasting, combine the roast and red wine in a food storage bag and refrigerate.

2. 15 minutes before roasting, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl.

4. Place roast on a baking pan or rack and rub all over with the seasoning mixture:

  

5. Roast uncovered at 350 degrees for about 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until roast is about 145 degrees on a meat thermometer for medium rare. It took 1 hr 15 min. in my oven.

 Originally, I was going to make this meal earlier in the week when I hadn’t been to the grocery store in awhile, so I didn’t have a lot of options for a starchy side dish. I had some dried pasta, and I had a whole red onion that I’d originally been intending to caramelize for a lunch dish. Instead, I decided to caramelize the onion and mix with pasta for a side dish. I have not had the best success with caramelizing onions in the past, but it worked out this time. One secret to the process is patience—the onions have to be cooked low and slow, or they won’t turn out properly. This is a rather helpful guide: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_caramelize_onions/

Caramelized Red Onion Pasta

Prep time: 5-10 min. Cook time: 1 hr.

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

(US Customary)
1 red onion

2 T butter

a pinch of salt

12 oz rotini pasta

3 T butter

5 garlic cloves*

½ tsp dried thyme

Grated hard cheese such as Parmesan, optional

*I love garlic and regularly double the amount in recipes that I’m following. If your tastebuds are more normal, you might use 2 or 3 cloves.

1. Chop onion to desired coarseness. Heat 2 T butter in a pan on medium-low heat (you can also use olive oil. Apparently butter burns faster, so keep the heat low). Add onions.

2. Add a pinch of salt to help speed the process (it draws out the moisture). You can also add sugar if you want (just a pinch!), but I chose not to because I didn’t want the onions to come out too sweet.

At 30 minutes (photo taken with flash):

At 50 minutes (again with flash):

3. Fill a pot with water, and bring to a boil. Cook pasta about 10 min. or to desired firmness.

4. Melt the last 3 T of butter. Chop the garlic cloves and add; cook for 2 or 3 minutes, until slightly translucent.

5. Drain pasta and pour into a large bowl. Pour onion mixture over it and mix in. Grate cheese over it as desired.

Note: This recipe was an experiment. It came out rather dry (not much sauce to the noodles). I like that, but others may not. If you want more sauce, you might either add some olive oil or add more butter.

Boyfriend report: Everything was very tasty! No criticisms.