(Cauli)Flower Power!

Well LOOK AT ME. I was all grocery shopping and cooking dinner and saving some dinner for lunch tomorrow and cleaning the kitchen. These moments of culinary productivity are few and far between. It's no secret that I'm terrible at cooking. So any night I put on my cooking hat is an event. Tonight? The dish was baked potato soup, courtesy of that chick Gina over to the left in my blog roll Gina's Skinny Recipes. She has THE BEST recipes that are lighter and still supes delish. All was going well with tonight's recipe until I found myself putting cauliflower in my cart.

Pharon doesn't do cauliflower.

I don't know why I have such an aversion to cauliflower. It's basically, like, white broccoli right? But I had faith in Gina. I hesitantly dropped the white broccoli into my cart and moved on.

So I'm home, chopping up the white stuff. And I briefly flashed back to the guys in college who wrestled. Despite that super hot onesie deal they wear that looks like they pulled a thong up and over their shoulders, wrestlers are pretty cool. At least the ones I knew. But the major kink in that chain is their ears. Tiny, bubbly ears from getting their heads squeezed between another guy's legs. Cauliflower ears. Ew.

I continued gagging while chopping the cauliflower that I was soon going to ingest while I tried to not think "these are ears these are ears these are ears these are ears". I finally had a good rhythm going with the steaming and the peeling and the cooking and whatnot when my roommate Andrew came home.

Andrew: "What are you making?"

Pharon: "Baked potato soup."

Andrew: "Oh. So...what's with all the cauliflower?"

Pharon: "It's low fat potato soup. There's only like A potato in it. The rest is cauliflower that will apparently be masquerading as potatoes."

Andrew: "Hmm. Sounds about right. Just don't sit anywhere around me."

Pharon: "Rude. I don't WANT to sit anywhere around you ANYWAYS. Wait, why?"

Andrew: "You don't know? Well, cauliflower apparently makes some people really, uh, gassy."

............Say whaaaaaa?

What is up with THAT?! Just as I had gotten the whole tiny wrestler ear image out of my head, in comes the Pharting Pharon image? WTF, cauliflower?!

An old boyfriend I had ate LOADS of cauliflower. He smothered it with cheese, and I STILL wouldn't eat it. I USED to feel bad because word on the street is that cauliflower is good for you, and cheese is like one of my favorite foods. What could go wrong? But not only do I not regret refusing the white broccoli, but I now know that that smell was NOT the neighbor cooking veal and egg salad.

I soldiered on, though. I kept mixing and cooking and splattering soup everywhere (because OBVS I don't have an immersion mixer, and a hand mixer is a poor replacement). I really wanted this to work. Finally, it was Go Time. I garnished the soup with chives and bendy turkey bacon (in retrospect, I should have splurged on real bacon because there IS no substitute) and took the first bite.

It wasn't good, you guys. IT WAS GREAT. All the taste and texture of a baked potato with none of the guilt! I loved it. It was definitely worth it all the inner turmoil I had to battle. I forgot all about the ears, and I ate 3 hours ago and have not had the same unfortunate side effects that plagued my ex.

Yup, I'd say I'm a winner all around.