Seriously, we can only eat so much fried okra.

Roasted okra and tomatoes with chili garlic vinaigrette. © Ryan Schierling

My first experience with okra was decidedly unpleasant – an unfortunate "high-brow" circumstance wherein a vegetable galette included its overly-mucilaginous presence.

Then we moved to Texas. If you know anyone with a big garden in these parts, you're certain to find okra offered to you by the cubic bushel in late summer. Okra thrives in the heat and seems to defy the sun-baked earth, and it's been showing up on our doorstep for the last few weeks.

So, how do you say "no" – in good conscience – to the pound of okra that arrives with every late summer CSA delivery? We joined for the local and seasonal offerings, and it just wouldn't be right to turn it away or not make good use of it. 

What exactly are you supposed to do with this stuff? Common wisdom points immediately in the direction of pickling, making gumbo, or battering and frying. But there's only so much pickled okra that's going to get eaten at our house this year, and if I'm going to make a mess of my cooktop with a pot of boiling fat... well, I can't honestly say that okra is the first thing I'd choose to fry up.

In a flash of merciful recollection, Ryan remembered seeing a recipe for roasted okra and cauliflower salad in a cookbook we got last year – Smoke and Pickles by Chef Edward Lee. It has been our salvation over the past few weeks of CSA deliveries. (You can also find it featured in this post by CBS The Talk, where he was a guest last Fall.)

Ranch-style crudité slaw.

Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage slaw. ©  Ryan Schierling

For the longest time I thought I hated cole slaw. As it turned out, I just didn't like that typical picnic-style slaw with creamy and weirdly-sweet dressing. You know, the omnipresent variety you find in tubs in the supermarket deli.

The first "cole slaw" that I remember liking made a big impression on me, so much so that I wasn't really sure if it even could be considered a slaw so much as a shredded cabbage salad. Granted that was some [blah-blah-blah-redacted] years ago. The strangest thing is that this entire episode was also a defining moment in my appreciation for ranch dressing. Weird and tangential on the surface, I know, but I will explain.

I grew up in a household where blue cheese and Roquefort were the default, everyday salad dressings of choice. I was never one of those kids who put ketchup on everything or wanted to dip anything deep-fried in ranch dressing. In fact, I didn't really find ranch of much interest except as a suitable dunk for raw broccoli and cauliflower on the crudité platter – until that one day when someone served me shredded cabbage "cole slaw" made with ranch dressing instead of the usual fare. Suddenly a variety I could get behind! It just made sense, really. While I may not gravitate to ranch dressings for my salads, there is something to be said for the way certain vegetables are complemented by the creamy, tangy, herb and garlic flavors at its essence. This is doubly true if you make your ranch-style dressing fresh and from scratch.

Tortas de coliflor tacos.

Our new "house" taco - tortas de coliflor (cauliflower). © Ryan Schierling

It's been some time since a new taco recipe has graced the pages of this humble blog. There are taco joints a-plenty in this town and every home cook has a private claim to fame – such is the nature of good Austin living.

To date we've stayed true to our mission statement, entertaining ourselves here with stupendously highbrow and treacherously lowbrow tacos, plus a couple in between. But these tacos with their little cakes of tender, sweet cauliflower have, in a matter of just a few weeks, become our new "house" taco. As in "just you try and stop me from eating these every day!" 

I wish we could take credit for the concept, but we know a good thing when we taste it and Papalote Taco House on South Lamar in Austin gets our respectful nod. Papalote is a friendly little taco purveyor with an assortment of creative and delicious fare, and some of the more interesting vegetarian options you'll find in town. Unique among these offerings is a taco starring a fried patty made with cauliflower, dressed in guajillo chile sauce and topped with cabbage and queso fresco. Delicious! It's a stroke of genius with a very low guilt quotient. 

How we first made these at home is most certainly not a story of scientific inquiry or deliberate re-creation. We just had a head of cauliflower that needed to be used, a stack of corn tortillas in the fridge, and we were hungry. We were working from vague memory of a previous visit, but with the basic concept and flavor profile in mind, and simply began making them as we saw fit. The cauliflower, we thought, would be most flavorful if roasted, and in order to let it shine we kept the patty seasonings minimal, simply adding an egg and some flour to tighten up the mixture. Loose as it was, we were able to form small patties, coat them in fine breadcrumbs and fry them up moist and delicious. 

Instead of making our own sauce that first time, we tried using the Frontera Guajillo Salsa which is looser, chunkier and milder but makes a bang-up shortcut if you're pressed for time. If you like them this way, you'll eventually want to try our Guajillo Sauce recipe below for the richer depth of chile flavor it imparts.