Weekend warriors

We spent the vast majority of our Memorial Day weekend wrestling with nets and wire panels, struggling to fashion some sort of containment arrangement for our tomato and strawberry planters.

Because once these are all gone?

Apparently now it is Open Season on everything else.

The squirrels, who previously had only arranged the occasional marauding party to steal fruit before it was quite ripe enough to pick by human standards, stepped up their game big time last week.

We are now thinking of this nonstop animal attack on our food crops as our own mini-version of Resident Evil. Simply substitute squirrels for zombies and tomatoes or strawberries for, well, brains, OK?  I realize as metaphor it isn't perfect, but work with me. 

So far, zombies have stripped the tomato plants of nearly every single brain, including our biggest, best hope for a huge slicing brain, leaving us only with a few flowers and teensy cherry brains up at the now bent-over-by-their-own-"protective netting" plant tops.

With no dogs running in the yard, if we are going to seriously attempt growing any sort of fruit at all we probably ought to simply must construct a large permanent enclosure to protect our harvests from the squirrels, raccoons, birds and armadillos.  This is something I learn and (apparently) unlearn annually, seeing as we still don't have any sort of dedicated enclosure in place.

Rather we seemed doomed to set in place a series of what were unsuccessful annoyances.  Obstacles but not insurmountable ones.  Whether or not I got organized in time, the Resident Evil were clearly already being drawn to the brains, and they recently began obnoxiously rubbing our noses in the truth their 24/7 access is an advantage they will not ignore.

NOW I remember why I felt so conflicted when I first bought those teeny tiny starter brains in 4 inch pots earlier this season.

Somehow I knew putting those innocents out in our yard would eventually turn out to be the first salvo in what has become full scale warfare.   Introducing my totally inelegant "I told you we might need all those twist ties and bread wrapper closures!" anti Zombie Maginot Line.

Yeah.  And I'm not even French.  Bring it, zombie squirrels!

Brrraaaaainsssss!

A while back I read what may be for me the most compelling reason to eat light(er) and stay fit, ever.

When the zombies come, the reasoning went, and we all know that is not "if" but "when"....when they come, it will be the out of shape fatties that fall first.

To me, appeals to some cryptic nonspecific eventual sense of "feeling healthy" or "living longer" typically fall like the wet clods of reasoning dirt they are when confronted with oh, bacon say, or chocolate brownies with pecans.

The idea of surviving the onslaught of zombies however, now that is something with a little more immediacy, a little more purchase to it. I can totally grasp why I might want to stay a little lighter on my feet in order to put off my own zombification for as long as is humanly possible given the proximity of malls and shopping strips to my neighborhood.

We all know malls and shopping centers are like flystrips to zombies. So while our days surviving the inevitable zombie attack may be fatefully limited, at best we can try to postpone the inevitable.  It is the human thing to do.

And while postponing the inevitable, nothing spices that up like a bit of pre-emptive revenge, like, say, eating brains for dinner.

I don't mean actual brains here, I am talking about those Brains of the Vegetable World:Cauliflower Florets.

And I am not talking about your mamby-pamby boiled or steamed versions of cauliflower, nothing in what I am suggesting will require masses of cream or smothering blankets of cheese.

Nope. I am talking about Roasted Cauliflower. Simple. Elegant.  Light.  Delicious. And centrally to our discussion here today? A dish that will not be weighing you down when you are needing to flee for your life.

Here's the basic drill. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.

Rinse well then cut up your cauliflower (a medium head will feed 3-4 depending on the serving size) into individual florets. There will be some teensy pieces, don't worry - those will become the extra-crispy Secret Cook Rewards you get to eat off the pan while plating.

Coat the dried florets in a bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil, a sprinkling of kosher salt, and some freshly ground black pepper.

Place on a foil lined pan (to make cleaning up a snap), making sure not to crowd the florets.

Roast for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. I began stirring the first time I began to smell the cauliflower roasting, at about 11 minutes, then stir every 7-8 minutes after that to keep an eye on when to take them out.  You want roasted not charred, and the journey from one to the other is a short one.

And there you go! Roasted Cauliflower. Nutty, golden brown, delicious as it is, although some play around with stir-in seasonings like cumin, garlic salt, or red pepper flakes.

Eating roasted cauliflower brains may not serve up a slam dunk as zombification prevention, but until that has been absolutely proven, why take the chance?  Your life may hang in the balance.

In the meantime, I am doing copious research because that is just the kind of selfless, dedicated to the science, gal I am.

You're welcome.



Brain image courtesy of WebMD.