Roasting a lean, quick way to get vegetables on the plate

You know you're going to be in a rush to get a healthy dinner on the table later tonight yet you want to make sure you include a vegetable. Pulling a bag of veggies from the freezer certainly is a speedy way to ensure vegetables get to the table, but can you say "BORING."

Last week, facing another frozen veggie with dinner I shut the freezer door and I pulled a creamy white head of cauliflower from my fridge. Perfect.

Usually, I'd trim the florets from the stem, steam them until barely tender and finish them with a low-fat cheese sauce - a method and presentation that brings me back to my childhood.

But, there's also a moderately negative issue with this method: the cheese sauce soaks up water the steaming florets throw off and what was a thick cheese sauce turns watery. Not really bad, but hardly ideal.

So I contemplated other preparations and after some rapid research found that cauliflower, like many other vegetables, is be easily and quickly roasted in a 450-degree oven.

As my oven heated, I rinsed the head under cold water and began cutting off florets, placing them on a paper towel to dry. I placed the florets in a mixing bowl, sprayed them with olive oil and then sprinkled them with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper and gave them a brief toss to distribute the seasonings.

I lined a rimmed baking pan with foil (easy clean up) and spread the cauliflower evenly into the pan. Finally, since I've been adding smoked paprika to all sorts of foods lately (I like its tongue-tingling kick, deep smoky flavor and garnet hue), I lightly dusted my florets with some. If you don't have smoked paprika on hand substitute sweet or hot paprika (just make sure it's fresh and good quality). Into my oven they went. I set my timer to 20 minutes and turned to preparing the rest of my dinner.

Half way through the roasting time, I carefully shook the pan to make certain my florets weren't sticking and rotated the pan 180 degrees. As the florets continued roasting, my kitchen filled with wonderful, slightly smoky aromas.

The timer went off at the same time I was sliding my chicken burgers from a nonstick skillet onto serving plates. The paprika, bright red when the florets went into the oven, now looked dark reddish-brown and my florets were golden brown in spots. I added a light dusting of fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and added them to my dinner plates.

How did my roasted cauliflower taste?

Absolutely delicious. The natural sugars in the cauliflower caramelized while roasting and added flavor notes that don't develop during steaming. Roasting also eliminates some of the moisture to the florets so they didn't lose water onto the plate. The parmesan added another flavor layer that turned very good cauliflower, into an extraordinary side dish.

I can't wait to try roasting other vegetables, like butternut squash, asparagus, green beans, carrots, beets, brussels sprouts, fennel, broccoli, turnips and eggplant.

If you have a favorite recipe for roasted vegetables I'd love to hear about it. Share it with me at don@theleanwizard.com. In the meantime, try this one.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe make-over requests. Write him at don@theleanwizard.com.