Last weekend at the farmer’s market I was seduced by a pile of gorgeous cauliflower at one of the booths. I wasn’t at all sure what I wanted to do with it, so when I got it home I opened the first book I think of when looking for interesting and unusual uses for fresh produce: Moro East. I lit on a recipe for cauliflower soup with cumin and coconut milk, and was instantly sold.

I seldom make pureed soups, but really like them when I do. I simplified the recipe a bit as I went, and liked it so much I wouldn’t make it any differently next time, although it might be even better if you followed the cookbook exactly – especially the caramelised chile butter with pine nuts drizzled on at the end. As it was, I loved the smooth texture, the quiet spices, and the hint of coconut peeking out from the cauliflower. I ate a bowl of it, sprinkled with smoked paprika, while waiting for the rest of dinner to cook, then ended up pouring spoonfuls of it over a pita stuffed with beef kebabs and spiced eggplant, as if it were tzatziki sauce. Fabulous.

Cauliflower Soup with Cumin and Coconut Milk

adapted from Moro East by Sam & Sam Clark

• 2 Tbsp olive oil and/or butter
• 1 large onion (I used a Walla Walla Sweet), chopped
• 1 large cauliflower, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tsp cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups chicken broth
• salt

optional garnish: brown butter with smoked paprika, and pine nuts browned in olive oil (I just added paprika, minus the butter)

Saute the onion slowly in olive oil or butter (or a mix) in a soup pot until soft and golden, 20-30 minutes. Add cumin seed, cinnamon and garlic and cook a minute more, then add the cauliflower and stir it up well. Add a splash of water, cover and steam for 15-20 minutes, until the cauliflower has softened. Take the cover off and mash the cauliflower with a spoon or potato masher, continuing to cook if it’s not quite soft (add more water if it dries out). Pour in the broth and coconut milk, bring to a simmer and cook ten minutes or so. Salt to taste. Turn off the heat, then use an immersion blender to puree the soup smooth (I would recommend not trying this in a countertop blender, unless you want scalding cauliflower soup all over your kitchen). Check for seasoning, then serve.

We had originally planned to have steak for dinner, but I was feeling tired and steak sounded like a lot of work to eat, so we did a little menu rearrangement. We had bought a cauliflower with the intention of making Pasta al Cavolfiore, a comforting Moosewood standby from our college days, and it was just the thing for my mood. My husband used to make this for me when we were first going out, and I find it soothing.

Because this is a recipe from the 1977 Moosewood Cookbook, a book that could have been commissioned by the Eat More Cheese Association, it’s less of an Italian pasta dish and more like a vat of cauliflower cheese with some pasta and tomato thrown in. You don’t really have to add as much cheese as the recipe says to – it would still taste great – but I admit a lot of the appeal here is the dense richness of the cheesy pasta, studded with tart bits of cauliflower and herb. We do veer away from the Moosewood vegetarian standard by adding some chunks of seared kielbasa, which adds a nice smokiness, as well as heft.

We never seem to make less than a full recipe of this stuff, even though it takes us days to eat the leftovers. I should mention that this is one of the few things that doesn’t really work with a fried egg on top. Yes, I tried it.

Pasta al Cavalfiore

adapted from (the old version of) The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large cauliflower, broken into bite-size pieces
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tsp dried basil, or 1 Tbsp fresh julienned basil
• 2 cups or 1 large can tomato puree or crushed tomato
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups grated cheese, Parmesan or Cheddar or a blend
• 1 kielbasa or other smoked sausage
• 1 lb pasta (we like penne)

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and bay leaf, and the basil if using dried. Saute for a minute, then add the cauliflower, salt lightly and saute, adding water if necessary, until the cauliflower is tender. If using fresh basil (we often get those bundles of hydroponic basil this time of year, it’s wonderful having it fresh) add it now. Add the tomato and simmer 15 minutes or so.

If adding kielbasa, slice the sausage thickly and arrange the pieces in a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Sear, turning once, until the pieces are hot and slightly caramelized. Set aside.

Cook the pasta until just done, reserving some of the water before draining. Stir the pasta into the cauliflower-tomato sauce, adding a bit of the pasta water if it seems too thick. Stir in the cheese, and the kielbasa if using. Serve right away.

It was hard to know what to eat after getting home from Duckfest. We’d eaten so much good food, I found myself wanting meals relatively light on carbs but not too depressingly healthy. I didn’t want to give us whiplash, after all.

This was a dinner that really hit the spot. Jon made up his favorite recipe for kofte kebabs with a mix of beef and lamb, but turned it into meatloaf instead of individual burgers or kebabs. I roasted a panful of cauliflower florets tossed with olive oil, cumin seed and mustard seed, and stirred up some yogurt with fresh garlic, dried mint, salt and pepper.

It was the perfect combination of comforting, spicy and virtuous.

One of the treasures that we brought back from Kansas City (and, no doubt, were responsible for our suitcase being searched) was this bunch of gorgeous skewers. They’re just what we’ve been wanting: long, flat and wide. Finally, we thought, we can make ground-meat kebabs without the meat falling off the skewer!

We were wrong, of course.

After Jon mixed up the spiced meat and lovingly molded it around the skewers, he rigged up a clever system of foil-wrapped bricks to suspend the kebabs over the grates. The meat promptly fell off the skewers.

Fortunately, even having dripped down onto the grates, the meat cooked just fine as a sort of elongated burger. And it was fantastically delicious, rather like exceptionally good gyros. We ate them stuffed into whole wheat pita which we had toasted on the grill, along with a Turkish cucumber-yogurt sauce called cacik and a pan of beautiful roasted cauliflower.

This was our second grilling dinner so far this year (the day before we did steaks and asparagus). It may turn out to be a while before we can grill again, but this meal made me think that summer might someday come for real.

Butcher’s Köfte Kebabs

adapted from Turquoise: A Chef’s Travels in Turkey by Greg and Lucy Malouf

• 1 pound ground lamb
• 1 pound ground beef
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• half a cup diced tomato (the recipe calls for two fresh tomatoes, but I just used a handful of drained diced canned tomatoes)
• 2 tsp pomegranate molasses
• 2 Tbsp kofte spice mix (see below)
• salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and mush up well in a bowl. Refrigerate for half an hour, then mold the mixture onto skewers and grill. Or maybe just make it into hamburger patties, if you have our luck with skewers. Serve with pita and a sauce made from Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, garlic and herbs.

Köfte Spice Mix

• 1/3 cup ground cumin
• 1/3 cup dried mint
• 1/3 cup dried oregano
• 2 Tbsp sweet paprika
• 2 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tsp hot paprika

Mix everything together and store in a jar.

Earlier this week, knowing we wouldn’t be eating dinner at home again for a while, I looked at the vegetables lurking in the refrigerator to see what needed using. A bunch of slightly faded Tuscan kale got eaten for breakfast (with a fried egg on top, yum), which left a bag of cute little cauliflowers, slightly spotted with brown, from our last trip to Dunbar Gardens. Cauliflower usually leads to one of two things around here: cauliflower gratin or Indian gingered cauliflower. We wanted to go the gingered route, so I went combing through our multitude of Indian cookbooks to find something to go with it.One of our slightly newer books is by Meena Pathak, of Patak’s jarred chutney and curry paste fame. Everything we’ve made out of it has been easy and tasty, except for two things: she doesn’t tell you to add salt, and she does tell you to add way way way too much cayenne (we like spicy, but after making a couple of Meena’s dishes as written we will never believe her again – yeek!) But she has a lot of nice recipes for chicken curry, which isn’t something I make very often. I picked the Black Pepper Chicken, mostly because I had everything on hand already.

To make Black Pepper Chicken: Saute sliced shallots in a wide pan with a good dollop of oil. Add three cardamom pods, three whole cloves and two bay leaves – these will all pop in the hot oil and fling themselves out of the pan, so remember a spatter screen (I didn’t). Add some crushed garlic and stir it all up. Add some fennel seed (she calls for ground, but I only had whole and was lazy), ground coriander, ground turmeric and cayenne. Pour in a can of diced tomatoes and let the whole thing simmer while you get a pot of rice going. Add chicken meat cut up into about one inch pieces – I use boneless thigh meat for this sort of thing, because it doesn’t toughen with long cooking and tastes better than breast meat. I added salt at the same time as the chicken. Simmer the dish for 15 or 20 minutes, stirring once in a while, until the chicken is cooked and everything else is ready. At the last minute grind in lots of black pepper.

We had this with the gingered cauliflower (basically, small florets of cauliflower stirfried with ginger and garlic, seasoned with turmeric and coriander, then steamed in a little water until soft), yogurt, Patak’s chile relish and a pot of Bengal Spice tea with milk and sugar.