Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower is one of those things that Suz always gets at the Farmer's Market, and I always wonder why. I've never jived with cauliflower. You know, it's ok. Whatever. Anyway, I've been wondering about it, wanting to know how to make it interesting. I've also been wanting to come up with more easy veggie sides. So, I was pretty excited when Nancy gave me Alice Waters' Art of Simple Cooking, which has a TON of easy, simple vegetable recipes and, perhaps more important for me, information about the actual vegetable like season, how to clean and prepare, etc.

One cauliflower recipe was for roasting them. Very simple, cutting across the whole head into 1/4-inch slices (I cut up half of one and I could only get two or three nice big slices; everything else was little slices of individual florets). Then, you just put them on a cookie sheet, brush with olive oil or melted butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss in a 400 degree oven until tender and starting to brown (about 20 minutes for the big pieces). It's hard to describe the flavor, sort of buttery (even though I used olive oil) and also a little carmel... It's good! It doesn't look pretty, but it's a surprisingly tasty side.