Alice and Eric's Blue Cheese Buffalo Cauliflower Noe Valley

During our last visit with our son Kip, who lives in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, we cooked at home and prepared a fully flavored roasted cauliflower dish with lovely Alice.

This is a riff off of the Buffalo cauliflower and blue cheese dish from the State Bird Provisions cookbook - we enjoyed the State Bird Provisions restaurant with Kip and Alice during our prior visit, and I bought them the cookbook as a housewarming gift.  The recipe in the book instructs to deep fry a batter dipped cauliflower, and that was just over the top for what we were prepared to do that night, so we modified.

Alice selected a delicious, relatively soft blue cheese which added the perfect flavor accent to offset the zing of Buffalo sauce.

1/4 cup favorite Buffalo sauce

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1 small head cauliflower, cut into flowerets

1 jalapeno pepper, minced

1/2 red Bermuda onion, peeled and sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup favorite blue cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 425F.  Melt the butter and whisk together with the hot sauce.  Place the veggies into a large bowl and toss with the hot sauce.

Tip the veggie mixture into a rimmed roasting pan.  Use two if you have to, in order to make sure there is some air around the pieces.  This helps them roast better.

Roast for about 30 minutes, or until the veggies brown nicely.  

I like the cauliflower crisp-tender, so it’s a balance between browning and crispness.  (I often roast at 450F to achieve a better balance, but it really depends on your oven - experiment).

Turn veggies out onto a serving platter and sprinkle with the blue cheese.

Serves 4.

 San Francisco view from Noe Valley

You see SF, Oakland, the Bay, and even Mt Diablo in the far distance