Good friends of ours, Lynn & Sue, often exchange dinners with us. We’ve been doing it for years, and always enjoy their company whether it’s at our house or theirs. Sue’s a very good cook, so we have great conversations about food and about choir/church. Lynn and Dave have guy talk – about wine, travel, and choir/church. They’re both 2nd tenors. Sue and I are both 2nd altos. The day I’m writing this [over a week ago] we just sang our little hearts out for Reformation Sunday. Our choir, which has now swelled to about 140, and may be up to 150 starting next week, was a significant part of our church service, with the help of a brass ensemble multiple drums and flute, guitar, organ, piano and a synthesizer. It was gorgeous music – both to sing and hear. We sang some of the old hymns that I know nearly by heart – Great is Thy Faithfulness, for one.
Normally I don’t use my blog as a venue for discussing my faith, but I just had to share a bit about my Christian music life. Anyway, Sue & Lynn invited us for dinner that night, even though we didn’t get home from singing completely through two services, until about 12:30 pm. I’d offered to bring a couple of things, though, to make it easier on Sue. We do that generally, the guest brings something and a bottle of wine.
I’d given Sue a list of options of things I’d thought about making, and she chose two of them. But then Lynn started joking about a dinner I fixed one night a year or so ago when I made tabbouli salad, but instead of bulgur wheat, it was made with cauliflower. I didn’t tell any of the guests what was in it. Lynn, who professes to dislike cauliflower in most forms, liked it a lot. Then I told him what was in it. He’s never forgotten that I like to slip some in under his radar.
So, of course, I had to find some kind of cauliflower appetizer. Where he wouldn’t have a clue. It’s a kind of game we play. I couldn’t find much except some Indian-type ones making roasted cauliflower, flavored with Indian spices, which sounded more like a side vegetable anyway. But baking cauliflower florets would be much too obvious. Had to find something with camouflage. So this is the one. Found it on the internet, although it was a very oddball website and I’m not going to link to it. Besides, I changed the recipe, so it’s not really anybody else’s anymore. It was called a pate so I figured I could get away with serving it to Lynn, telling him it is a bean pate.
It’s really a dip – and contains many of the usual ingredients for one – like cream cheese (light), and sour cream (light). But then it veered off in another direction: hardboiled eggs, an onion, a small quantity of cannellini beans, and some cooked cauliflower. The seasonings are mild – salt, pepper, curry and parsley. As a matter of fact, the online recipe I found called it curried cauliflower pate, but the recipe didn’t contain any curry. I added curry powder and also lime juice because it needed just a little something to zip it up some. And I’d probably add even more curry powder, but didn’t want to overwhelm the palates of us all. I used less beans, less sour cream, less cream cheese, and MORE cauliflower. The online recipe contained butter, but I left it out.
I served it with some veggies and pita chips. along with a second appetizer too (an almond dip, which I’ll post in a day or so). A Greek type one based on skordalia, the Greek sauce made with baked potato. More on that one later. I also took a Roasted Sweet Potato, Black Bean and Red Bell Pepper Salad with a jalapeno dressing, which was really good (I posted that one last week). Very international menu, based on what I was bringing! Sue made a delish Mexican baked chicken dish with tomatoes, sour cream, avocado and a tomatillo sauce. And a very nice spinach, apple and pomegranate salad. Oh yes, and for dessert we had pieces of Julia Child’s chiffon pumpkin pie that I thought was fabulous. She’s going to give me the recipe.
So, you want to know how it went? Lynn tried both dips and didn’t say much at first. He then pointed to the skordalia dip and said “now, you didn’t slip some cauliflower in this one, did you?” Honestly, I could say with great laughter, “no, no cauliflower.” Sue asked him how he liked the other dip, this pate, and he said great. Liked it. We all did. When I told him it WAS cauliflower, he didn’t believe me. We all laughed and nearly finished the bowl. It was good. Not like a meat-based one (like clams) or a very major veggie one (like caramelized onions or artichokes) – in this one you really cannot taste or feel cauliflower. I liked the curry hint to it – it might not be to everyone’s taste. I liked the texture. And it’s fairly low cal and low fat.
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Curried Cauliflower Pate
Serving Size: 8
4 ounces canned cannelini beans — drained
4 ounces light cream cheese — room temp
3/4 cup sour cream, light
7 ounces cauliflower — cooked
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 small onion — cut in small chunks
2 large eggs — hard boiled
1 teaspoon salt — or more to taste
1 teaspoon black pepper — or more to taste
1 teaspoon curry powder — (or up to 2 tsp. to taste)
2 teaspoons lime juice — (juice from one lime)
1 teaspoon fresh parsley — minced
2 teaspoons fresh parsley — minced and whole, for garnish
1. Using a food processor, blend white kidney beans, cream cheese, sour cream, cooked cauliflower, curry powder, lime juice, Cheddar cheese, red onion, eggs, salt, black pepper and parsley. Puree until smooth. Taste for seasoning. Add more curry powder if desired, and/or salt and pepper.
2. Pour into small ramekins and chill until ready to serve. Garnish with fresh minced Italian parsley.
2. Serve with crudites, crackers and/or pita chips. Serving Ideas: This tastes best with crispy pita chips. Or celery sticks. A fairly neutral something to get it from plate to mouth since the flavorings in the dip are quite subtle.
Per Serving: 140 Calories; 9g Fat (56.8% calories from fat); 8g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 78mg Cholesterol; 495mg Sodium.
A year ago: Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Grape Sauce
megan meyers (lasswell)
said on November 5th, 2009:
Fun to read about you enjoying time with my folks; especially when the joke is on my dad!!! I’ll have to try to trick him into some cauliflower when they’re visiting over Christmas…
Hi Megan – oh, by all means, see if you can pull a fast one on him. I think I should quit with the cauliflower stuff now (because he will suspect with everything I make!), so I’ll pass the torch on to you! . . . carolyn t