Cauliflower Cheeze and Peanut Butter Squares

Vegan MoFo has been a great vehicle to try new recipes from blogs I had never read before, but today's recipe is something I have eaten nearly a million times already, and it is from a blog that I have loved since 2008 when Wing-It was born.



It's Mandee's Cauliflower Cheeze! I've blogged about this one before, and have made it SO many times since that day! This beauty makes it to my belly at least every couple of weeks, sometimes once a week, and sometimes even twice a week. It's easy to make, it's delicious, and it's healthful. Triple WIN! Because I have made it so many times, I have made several variations of this dish: half cauliflower and half broccoli, half cauliflower and half artichoke hearts, all broccoli, half cauliflower and half Brussels sprouts, all cashews and no macadamias, nutritional yeast, Daiya... the possibilities are endless! I usually make it with frozen cauliflower that I cook in the microwave for a couple of minutes until it's not frozen solid anymore. I bake it at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until the cauliflower feels soft when I insert a fork in it. As with all other casserol-y things, I broil it for a minute when it's done.



You wanna take a peek inside?



So deliciously creamy and satisfying! Today's streaming recommendation would have been Gavin and Stacey, because every time I make Mandee's Cauliflower Cheeze it reminds me of the episode when Pam was pretending to be a vegetarian (for the silliest reason) and Gwen makes a chili con carne for everyone else, but Pam gets stuck with a cauliflower cheese - without the cheese because Gwen didn't know if Pam ate dairy, so it was just "cauliflower with a bit of onion." The horror! Pam really wanted that chili and she asked her husband to "smuggle" her some meat! Anyway, Netflix used to have Gavin and Stacey available to watch instantly but they don't anymore. BOOO!



For dessert today we have some sweet Peanut Butter Squares that Mandee's friend found on the interwebz. Chocolate and peanut butter? Yes! Gimme! They are like a deconstructed peanut butter cup! Mandee said that they were super sweet, so I figured I would only use half the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. They weren't impossibly sweet, but they also didn't firm up much without the extra sugar. Doh! My bad. The chocolate was very hard and the peanut butter pretty soft, which made it impossible to cut them into squares without squashing and flattening the peanut butter. I flipped the whole thing upside down (chocolate-side down) and cut them that way instead. It worked!

Today's Duck-of-the-Day picture...



Hey! You're not a duck! This is my mother in law's pup who we shall call Piggly Wiggly to respect his witness protection program rules. This is his Bond, James Bond face. Wiggly, Piggly Wiggly.