That's CAULIFLOWER??????????

When we were little, my mom had one way of serving cauliflower: whole, drowned in cheese sauce and baked.  It was pretty delicious but it seemed like a lot of trouble for a veggie side dish.  By itself, cauliflower is pretty bland, so it really needed that cheese sauce.

I haven't bought cauliflower on a regular basis for a long time, so I don't know how I thought of this.  Mashed Cauliflower!!!  I thought to myself, let me just treat it like a potato: boil it, mash it with cream and butter, and put it on the plate next to my steak.  Anyways, it was delicious with my little New York strip steak and a small arugula salad.  And it didn't make a huge mess!  Here's the whole meal:   :-)

EASY STEAK

Make sure you get a good cut of steak, like a ribeye, New York strip, T-bone, skirt steak (churrasco), etc.  I usually end up with a bone-in New York strip because I can sometimes get those for $4.00 at Fry's, which seems like a pretty good deal compared to the other steaks.  And it's very tasty!

Steak
1 Tbsp. Butter
Salt and Pepper

Season your steak with salt and pepper.  Melt the butter in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  Make sure the pan is hot enough for the steak to sizzle when it hits the pan.  Place the steak in the melted butter, seasoned side down.  Now you can season the other side with salt and pepper.  Fry your steak until it starts getting brown (see picture), then turn it over and fry the other side.  It doesn't take very long, just a few minutes.  When it's done the way you like it (i.e., rare, medium, well done), take the steak out of the pan and let it sit for a couple minutes before you cut into it.  Pour the melted butter from the pan over the steak before you serve it.

You can also serve your steak sliced.  It's super yummy if you pour the butter over the slices!

MASHED CAULIFLOWER

1 Head of Cauliflower
2 Tbsp. Heavy Cream
1-2 Tbsp. Butter

I cut the cauliflower into pieces but I don't see why you can't leave it whole to boil it.  It fell apart when it got soft anyways.

Boil the cauliflower in lightly salted water until it's soft, then drain it well.  Add the heavy cream and butter, and cream it with an immersion blender (also called a "stick blender").  That's it!!

BABY ARUGULA SALAD

Baby Arugula Leaves, lightly chopped
Lemon Juice
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

I like to chop my salad greens lightly so that I don't end up with giant salad leaves on my fork.  I'm kind of obsessed with arugula right now.  You should be able to get the baby arugula leaves in a bag or a box, cleaned and ready to eat.

Dress the arugula with lemon juice instead of vinegar, for a nice lemony taste.  Add your olive oil and salt and pepper.  Super easy!

USELESS TRIVIA:

My mom is Japanese, so she can't pronounce "arugula" very well, even though she's lived in America for decades and doesn't seem to have trouble with other English words.  She thinks she says it just fine.