Crispy Cauliflower Tacos

Hey, hey, hey! We survived the Monday after a long weekend. It is always hard to get back to the grind after a nice long weekend, but we did it!  

I am working on a new morning routine and getting up a little earlier to ride my Peloton before I even come downstairs. I was worried I would not be as energetic in the morning, but I had a new PR this morning so I think it is going to be fine. After my workout, I run through a quick shower, do my hair, throw on some makeup and get dressed. All done before setting one foot downstairs. I then have a cup of coffee while cooking breakfast and am at my computer well before 8:00 a.m. Hopefully, getting exercise done first thing will take the pressure off the busy evenings when I am trying to wrap up work, take the dog for a walk and get dinner on the table. I will keep you posted on how the routine shakes out.

I am also happy to report that I squeaked by Thanksgiving week with 41 plant varieties on my list. With all the eating festivities of last week, it seems like I should have set a new plant variety record, but I was barely meeting the minimum.  I need to work on that. 

I started out this week strong with a great lawnmower breakfast taco with eight plant varieties. Not sure what happened to this picture, but it looks like it is from the 70s. Anyway, I am a big fan of lawnmower tacos, but from 2020, not 1970. 

You know what else I am a big fan of? Crispy Cauliflower Tacos by A Couple Cooks!  I have made these a couple of other times, but I don't think I have shared them with you.  They are so dang good and the cauliflower is really, really crispy.  

The ingredient list is a little weird - but just go with it!  Don't question that the marinade for the cauliflower has soy sauce, coconut oil, maple syrup and peanut butter!  Just do it.  Then toss the marinaded cauliflower with the panko, cornmeal, spiced up dry mixture and be happy you followed the recipe! 

Pop these little nuggets  a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. 

While they were cooking, I whipped up some garlic, cabbage, bok choy goodness to go with them. 

I sautéed the veggies in a little olive oil.  Splashed in some soy sauce and red pepper flakes. Cooked it for maybe 90 seconds until it got good and wilted. Once that was done, I made a quick little vegan yum yum sauce to drizzle on top of my creation. 

I still had time to empty the dishwasher! 

When the cauliflower was almost ready to come out of the oven, I grabbed my corn tortillas and threw them straight on top of my gas burner.  Flipped the tortillas a couple times and got them hot and charred. 

I split the cabbage mixture between the two tacos, piled them high with cauliflower, drizzled them with sauce and sprinkled on a few green onions. 

The combination was fantastic.  Reminded me so much of a Chuy's fish taco!  That is good eating right there. Try it! 

I added cauliflower, purple cabbage, bok choy and garlic to my list for dinner. I could probably also add corn for the tortillas and the corn meal in the coating, but it just doesn't feel like a plant so I am not adding it. Regardless, it sure was a tasty dinner.   

I have to leave you with this story.  Remember last week when I made veggie spring rolls with all the colorful veggies wrapped in rice paper?  Bob called me and told me it looked like I had wrapped up a little man inside the rice paper.  I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me this picture.  Do you see the little man in the spring roll on the left?  Zoom in.  It looks like a Lego figurine with his face trapped against the rice paper! So funny. I won't be able to eat a spring roll again without looking for a little fellow! 

I hope your Monday was great and you started your week with a blank plant list!  This is week 12 for me of eating 40+ different plants a week. Feels great! 

Locking Up Christmas

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, it is time to look forward to Christmas. We won't be traveling for Christmas, so I have to get gifts purchased, wrapped and mailed to our family in Bama. 

I think I mentioned that I was going to torture my nieces and nephews with the gift of cash. I am just not a fan of giving them cash in an envelope, so I have to make it challenging for them. The youngest is 16, so they are old enough to figure it out. 

I had a friend ask if I could give a little bit more information about my plan so maybe they could torture someone in their life. I am more than happy to oblige. 

I started off with the basic supplies shown below + some cold hard cash.  

You need:

• Plastic box with lid - IRIS USA Medium Modular Supply Case on Amazon. If you can't find this one, you can get something similar.  The dimensions are 5.24 x 8.4 x 1.98 inches.
• 4 ft 3mm luggage security wire with loops at both ends
• Luggage lock with a four number combination
• Small Box to put the cash in and wrap - I got 3.5 X 3.5 X 1 size boxes but anything smaller than the plastic box would work. 

Then the fun begins! The only way I could think of that the kids would not be able to wiggle the cable off the end of the plastic box to get it opened, was to drill a hole through the box. Judy helped me think through the best way to do it. She has an engineering brain that works great at figuring things out. 

I used my biggest drill bit! Look at that thing! Made me feel like a boss! I opened each plastic box and braced the end I was going to drill against a 2 X 4 to support the plastic so it would crack under the pressure of the drill. Then I just pressed down gently with the drill and let it rip! On some boxes, the drill made a nice clean hole - on others it was kind of a raggedy mess with pieces of plastic that had to be cut off with scissors. Never quite figured out what I was doing different that was causing some to go great and some not so great.  But in the end, they all had holes big enough to run the wire through. 

I put the cash in the smaller box and wrapped it with a ribbon.  Then I ran the wire through the holes on the end of the box and over the box and then shut the lid. 

Next up is the only tricky part...figuring out how to wrap the wire all around the box and make it tight enough to just barely meet for the lock to go through both loops of the cable.  I ended up twisting the wire over and over and over on the top of the box to tighten up the cable so it would just barely meet.  I wanted it to be snug. 

I picked four random numbers out of thin air and followed the directions on the lock to set the combination for each lock. I made a list of all the combinations with each person's name, just in case they can't figure it out. 

For the final step I used a black and red sharpie to write the four numbers of their lock in random order all over the outside of the box. I am not sending any clues or instructions.  The four numbers on the box entered on the lock in the correct order will open the lock and let them access their gift. 

Two down....eight to go! 

Doesn't this make you happy that I am not your Aunt? 

Hopefully, this will be memorable - and not too hard!  I will keep you posted on the response I get from the kids!