Pinterest Pick # 7 Buffalo Cauliflower

Well Hello Again!

 

So this week I have decided to pull yet another recipe! This time I found a recipe for Baked Buffalo Cauliflower! Here's the Pin

 

Now, doesn't that look really good!? I thought so too! To be honest I thought to myself when I saw this pin "Well, I like the sound of Buffalo Cauliflower, but I like sound of Buffalo Chicken better!" I had to suppress my urges, silence the screaming from my inner fat kid, and decide that buffalo cauliflower will be my next pin pick! NO chicken for me! It's all about the Cauliflower, baby.

My first dilemma was trying to figure out exactly where to start. You see, this was not the only Buffalo Cauliflower recipe I had pinned, this was the "SKINNY" version of the recipe. How in the world could cauliflower, not be skinny? After reading the other recipe's that contained straight up cream, and other recipes with buttermilk, some of the other buffalo cauliflower recipes even called for the cauliflower to be breaded and deep fried. Now, as awesome as that sounds to deep fry cauliflower, it kind of defeats the point of eating veggies, no? So after much self talk, encouragement, and him-hawing, I decided I would stick with healthy  and go with the recipe from skinnytaste.com.

So here is the official recipe directly from the site...

Spicy Buffalo Cauliflower Bites

Skinnytaste.com

Servings: 6 • Size: about 1 cup cauliflower • Old Points: 2 pts • Points+: 3 pts

Calories: 119.4 • Fat: 2 g • Protein: 4 g • Carb: 21.4 g • Fiber: 3 g • Sugar: 0.2 g

Sodium: 1172 mg

 

Ingredients:

 

1 cup water

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp garlic powder

22 oz (6 1/2 cups) cauliflower florets

3/4 cup Franks Hot Sauce

1 tbsp melted unsalted butter

Directions:

 

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Lightly spray a large non-stick baking sheet with oil.

 

Combine the water, flour, and garlic powder in a bowl and stir until well combined.

 

Coat the cauliflower pieces with the flour mixture and place on the baking sheet; bake for 20 minutes.

 

While the cauliflower is baking, combine the hot sauce and butter in a small bowl.

 

Pour the hot sauce mixture over the baked cauliflower and continue baking for an additional 5 minutes. Serve with skinny blue cheese dressing if desired and celery sticks.

After reading the recipe, I knew this would be easy enough to do since I already had everything I needed, except cauliflower. I searched a bit for the best looking head of cauliflower once in the store. I am not going to lie, I felt kind of like an idiot! Let me explain, I am used to buying cauliflower frozen, steaming the crap out of it, and eating it! So I was not sure at all about how to pick out a decent head of cauliflower. Do you thump it? Squeeze it? Smell it? I wasn't sure, and God forbid I start doing all these things to a head of cauliflower, while standing in the produce section of my local grocery store, looking like a complete fool because all you really have to do it is grab one and buy it because they are all the same! I was a bit nervous! So, what did I end up doing??? I just grabbed the one that I thought looked the cleanest through the plastic they were all wrapped in, and went with it!  
When I when it actually used my cauliflower it looked ok, so a guess I did a good job! :)

So I went to following my recipe, and yes, this was much easier than the Avocado Egg! Thank goodness too, because I would not have lasted that long this time. lol! What I am going to divulge next, I must say, I contemplated just keeping to myself, and saying that I followed the recipe exactly. On the other hand, that would be a lie. Let me remind you, I am no Julia Child, nor do I have patience... lol! I am lazy remember? SO what did I do that was so different from the recipe? I added the hot sauce and the butter to the flour mixture. I didn't realize until after mixed everything up that I misread the instructions. Oh well, what was done, was done. We would see how bad I messed it up when the cauliflowers came out of the oven.

So they baked for 20 minutes, I did read that part right. Especially after the Avocado Egg fiasco! If I screwed everything else up, then dang it, they would be cooked for exactly the time and temp they were supposed to be baked at!

I pulled the baked cauli's out of the oven and could smell the hot sauce... YUM!!! It looked surprisingly good! I was actually excited to try it! I scooped my serving on to my real plate this time. I figured I owed it to you all reading to at least display my creation on a real plate! You all are worth washing an extra dish for, right!? Once dished out, I drizzled a bit more hot sauce on to the plate for decoration! Well, actually the extra hot sauce served a second purpose! The first was all about presentation, but the second was that I wanted to eat the extra hot sauce, of course!

Here's was my finished, and plated, Buffalo Cauliflower's. ---------------------->

Pretty huh? Well, at least better than the last time I tried to cook hopefully! lol

Is it arrogant for me to say how awesome these turned out, even with my misreading the recipe mishap, they still tasted great! There is no way that this was "skinny", but it was and that made me happy! My inner fat kid was thrown for a loop with this one, that's for sure!  I was so proud of myself for this one!

Now just a couple of helpful hints for those of you that want to try this for yourselves!

• Make sure to put aluminum foil down on your baking sheet before dumping your heavily coated buffalo cauli's onto it. That pan was a pain to clean, and you all know how I hate to wash dishes.

AND

• Go easy on the hot sauce. Now, don't get me wrong, I am no punk! I like when the spiciness is kicked up a few notches, but the serving I had was MUY CALIENTE! The serving that I had later on with no extra hot sauce was just as good!

Ok folks that is it for this pin, let me know if you all try it! This stuff really did taste pretty dang good, if I do say so myself! I loved it! Hope you enjoyed!

Love and Hot Sauce,

Bee