Pasta with Cauliflower

What I find hard when planning our weekly menus is to cook with what's available (and hopefully in season) while not making the same recipes over and over again. I am therefore always looking for new ways to cook the vegetables we purchase a lot (carrots, chard, zucchinis, eggplants, etc...) Another perfect example is cauliflower. We don't purchase cauliflower every week but at least once, if not twice, a month. I have been cooking cauliflower mostly au gratin or in soup but we all got tired of the same recipes... I therefore thought about a new way to present cauliflower, hoping to reconciliate my husband with cauliflower (too many gratins de chou-fleur growing up). I came up with a pasta recipe after reading a few recipes mixing cauliflower and pasta.  The combination chou-fleur-pâtes is not common in French cuisine (I am even sure that some of my French readers though I was cooking n'importe quoi when reading the post title!) where cauliflower mostly comes either solo or with potatoes. But then again, pourquoi pas? To ensure that my husband would eat it (I was not worried about my children this time!!), I added a few slices of bacon!! The result was beyond my expectations and actually vraiment bon. We all enjoyed it! I won't cook cauliflower this way only in the future because I like to keep pasta as my emergency dinner option...and this recipe does not qualify as an emergency dinner option. Then again, pourquoi pas? It's so easy! Bon Appétit!

 Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower, washed and cut into small pieces
- 2-3 garlic cloves, cut in half
- 2-3 shallots, pealed and thinly sliced
- 2-3 slices of bacon, cut into small bites (optional)
- Italian Parsley : a few sprigs, minced
- Olive oil, salt and pepper
 

• In a pan, over medium heat, saute the bacon, keeping its juice. Once cooked, set aside and keep the juice in the pan.
• Add the shallots and garlic cloves and saute them in the bacon juice. If there is not enough liquid, add a little bit of olive oil.
• Add the cauliflower pieces and cook (under a lid to keep the steam)
• In the meantime, cook the pasta.
• Mix in the cauliflower in the pasta, add the bacon and parsley and stir well.
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Drizzle a little bit of olive oil before serving.

My Personal Comments:

• If you are cooking the vegetarian version, use olive oil to saute the shallots and garlic.
• This makes great leftovers.