Cooking Journey: Buffalo Cauliflower Bites

 Alright so unlike my nail journey, my cooking journey is planned, calculated and well-thought out. Before making this recipe I read about 4 other ones. Ended up settling on this one because it had the highest rating and seemed relatively easy (it also had the least amount of calories--Not something I'm tracking but my mother is and wanted this food to be "family friendly".) 

If you'd like to see which recipe I followed, you can click HERE! Otherwise, I am basically going to tell you all the ingredients and my experience below! 

I am eating my buffalo bites as I write this and, even though they're no longer roasty-toasty, burn-your-mouth-with-every-bite hot, they're still delicious. The recipe instructs you to eat them while they're still hot, fresh out of the oven but, I don't know if the person who wrote the original article is a masochist or wants everyone else to suffer while eating these piping hot but, they were hot as Hell lava when they came out of the oven. Coupled with "hot" sauce, this is a recipe for extreme mouth torture. However, admittedly, they were best straight from the oven. Pain is pleasure, right? 

Oh god I sound like a real cooking blog. All this text before the actual recipe. I'm sure I've mentioned before how I try and stay away from typing lots before I get to the meat of the blog, in fear of looking like a cooking blog, and here we are. LETS CUT TO THE CHASE! (who's Chase?) 

This recipe took me 37 minutes to make (it estimates about 40) and was, honestly, pretty easy. The recipe is pretty basic, I feel like the ingredients are typically things people own or have stashed in their cupboards. This recipe also says it serves 4 (which means 1--have you ever read a KD box? It also says it serves four. We all know that means one meal.) 

Ingredients:

• 1 large head of cauliflower cut into florets
• ½ cup flour
• ½ cup water
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• parchment paper or cooking spray
• ½ cup hot sauce
• 2 tablespoons butter melted

Ingredients are pretty straight forward, no? 

Alright so in the bowl I've got the paprika, salt and pepper, garlic powder (might've been garlic salt to be honest, don't think I double checked), and flower. The mixture to coat the cauliflower also calls for water but, as you can see, only the dry ingredients are in the bowl at this time (pictured). Adding water turns this powder into a paste (demonstrated/pictured below). 

I then rinsed and chopped up my cauliflower, I did my best to try and keep all the pieces the same size. The recipe I was following suggested that you keep all the pieces on the larger side so they don't end up soggy. 

I cut a few of the huge pieces in half but for the most part, I tried to keep them as florets/whole. 

This recipe calls for you to spray the pan you're working with or use parchment paper. I thought to myself, "if I look in this one drawer and it has parchment paper, I'll use it." I did have PAM spray so I wasn't overly concerned if I didn't have parchment paper. I find I typically have one or the other in the house. Obviously in this case, this recipe is based off of me using parchment paper (pictured above.)

I usually have a spare pair of chopsticks kicking around and I thought these would be easiest to use to pickup and dip the cauliflower in the batter without dirtying my fingers, a ziplock bag or a fork. You could use a fork, tongs, your fingers (please wash your hands), or add this mixture to a ziplock, add the cauliflower and shake to coat. I opted to dip my pieces so they didn't end up with an excess amount of batter. 

I arranged my bites on the pan, lined with parchment paper so none of them were touching. Keep in mind, they don't need a ton of space between each piece as they're not going to expand or go anywhere but they shouldn't be touching, to ensure each side is cooked properly. 

This recipe calls for them to bake for 20-25 minutes (for the first portion). I opted for 22 minutes. I popped these babies in for 12 minutes initially, then I took them out, flipped them and put them back in for 10 more minutes. 

TOP PHOTO: This picture was when I first took the bites out of the oven after 12 minutes. 

LOWER PHOTO: This picture is when I flipped all the pieces over! I proceeded to cook them for 10 more minutes.

While these were back in the oven I made the buffalo mixture. It's one part butter and two parts hot sauce. I opted to use lactose free margarine. 

Disclaimer: My mother used this recipe before and she let me know, if you use butter, the buffalo sauce mixture comes out slightly thicker. If you opt to use margarine, it'll come out on the thinner side.  My stomach doesn't love butter, even though I love it (shoutout Paula Deen--everything is better with butter), so, like I said, I opted for lactose free margarine. As you can see (pictured), I used Frank's RedHot sauce. This recipe didn't specify and this is a tried and true favourite, cult-classic so, I figured, you can't go wrong.

Pictured above are the bites post-oven after their 22 minutes. The buffalo sauce is in the bowl to the right. Luckily, somehow, I had one of those cute little bbq sauce brushes and had the pleasure of brushing my buffalo sauce onto the cauliflower bites. If you don't have this luxury, fear not, you can simply dip the bites in using a fork or a spoon. Alternatively, I feel like chopsticks would work well. Dip 'em in and scoop em out. Similar to dipping, no, dousing a piece of sushi in soy sauce. I digress...

Pictured below is quite clearly the bites post-buffalo slathering. 

This recipe (which was kinda sorta unclear about? or maybe I'm just bad at cooking but) tells you to cover these in buffalo sauce then pop them back into the oven for 15 minutes. Which I did. It was then they started to smell good. 

Naturally, I forgot to take a picture of these straight out of the oven on the cooking sheet but they look the same in a bowl as they did on the baking tray so, first photo (above) is all my cute little cauliflower bites in a bowl and the second picture is one of them dipped in ranch. 

These were not super crunchy, however, I'm not sure the point is for them to be overly crunchy? Obviously they don't taste like chicken or have the texture of chicken but they are good and hearty. I feel like the flavour and spice level of these makes up for the "lack of meat", as my dad would put it. He doesn't love anything that's "trying to be meat" and he did enjoy these so, I'll take it as a win. My mother, who also isn't a fan of anything spicy (even in the slightest) and she enjoyed these. The heat comes after you've eaten 2 or 3 pieces and it's definitely a slow burn. The ranch helps take the edge off for sure. Definitely best enjoyed hot/warm/fresh out the oven. It says these can be kept in an air tight container in the fridge but, I feel like these are probably just best enjoyed if you eat them all in one sitting (whether alone or with friends, this is a judge-free zone.) 

I'd honestly give these maybe a 7.5, or 8 out of 10! For my first try, these came out really well, tasty and they were VERY easy to make (remember, I don't cook, I just know how to read.) 

Will you be trying these? Have you made cauliflower buffalo bites before? What do you think? Were they a hit? Let me know! 

I'll be sure to post more about my culinary journey! 

xo