Goulash Suprise

I did something interesting yesterday. I got it in my mind that I could whip up an out-of-the-ordinary dinner dish using my knowledge as a cook. My oh-so-little-knowledge as a cook. How did this all begin? Well, it was when I was sick with a high fever a few weeks ago.

That week I took in a lot of daytime television (by the way, how many iterations of Judge Judy can be produced, let alone, stomached by viewers?), one of the shows in the lineup was Rachael Ray. At 102 degrees, I watched as she made a pasta dish with cauliflower (which she pronounced call-lee-flower). She made it look just so simple. And every time she broke for commercial she’d say something like, “All I’ve got to do is cut up the parsley, steam the vegetables, strain the pasta, stir in the Ricotta, and add the spices. Be back in a couple.” To my fevered mind, the words, “Be back in a couple,” somehow meant that I, too, could work like Rachael, and create the dish in a couple of minutes just like her and her 14 person prep staff. So after the antibiotic cleared up my respiratory infection, I headed to the grocer and bought some call-lee-flower. Then it sat in the refrigerator for a few days because I didn’t buy the Ricotta cheese, a staple to Mrs. Ray’s dish.

About this time, I was talking to my sister, who, without knowing that the veggie was sitting in my fridge said, “I freeze cauliflower sometimes and later use it in soups.” “Ahha,” I thought to myself, “that’s what I’ll do to buy some time!” So in the freezer it went. Yesterday, I pulled it out to defrost and use for dinner. I had cottage cheese, that’s like Ricotta right? I was going to conquer the dish!

I pulled out the defrosted bunch. It smelled gross and the greenery around the bottom was slimy. I cut that off and found that the florets were still usable, but I understood why my sister said she used it for soup. I bagged my recipe plans; the frozen cauliflower plus the cottage cheese were throwing too many swerves into my procedure. So I did the next best thing. I decided to boil the cauliflower. As I was doing that, I sautéed an onion. All good recipes seem to include sautéed onion, which I was sure would work some magic into whatever I was making. I drained the water from the cauliflower. I had heard once that people add mashed cauliflower to potatoes, so I mashed mine, sans the potatoes. I then began to add. I added the onions. The mash tasted like onions. I added sour cream. The mash tasted like sour cream. I added shredded cheddar cheese. The mash tasted like sour cream and cheddar cheese. I add cilantro. The mash tasted like cilantro. I added pepper. Bad idea. Cilantro and pepper don’t seem to compliment each other.

I didn’t know what I had created. It looked like veggie slosh, so I called it goulash. Thank goodness my sister called me before I almost added soy sauce (soy sauce slosh goulash). When I told her of my concoction, she said it didn’t sound all that bad and suggested I add some carrots and serve it over rice. I did so and ate my dinner. Not too bad for goulash.

That evening, Jess called to tell me he was on his way home. “I made goulash for dinner,” I told him, which was unusual because I’m usually not one to declare what’s for dinner.
“Oh, really?” his reply sounded impartial.
“I made it up myself.”
“Oh, I see.” This time, not so sure about things.
When he got home, he tasted it. His conclusion, “Interesting, but not bad. I like the carrots.”