When you get home from vacation, it is generally to an empty refrigerator. When you get home from vacation and you are sick, it is not only to an empty refrigerator, but also an underwhelming desire to fill it.

So, right now, I have a wicked cough, an ear that won’t pop and no desire to cook. Tomorrow I’ll be picking up my newest delivery from Full Circle Farms. I’m hoping that will lead to a desire to get cooking again (beautiful ingredients tend to do that to me).

Until then, I have a recipe that I worked on about a week before I left for vacation. Roasted cauliflower is one of my very favorite things to eat so I was excited to get a head of cauliflower in my box a few weeks ago. I had a bit of ground beef in the fridge and decided meatballs would be the perfect accompaniment. I decided to use a recipe for the cauliflower that I often use for clients. The kalamata olives give it a decidedly Greek bent, so I decided that Greek would be the way to go for flavoring the meatballs.

Here’s the ingredients for the cauliflower:

1 head cauliflower, cut into pieces
a couple of hand fulls of tomatoes (usually I use all grape tomatoes and that honestly would work better because the chopped tomatoes that I used kinda fell apart, but that’s what I had so…)
a hand full of kalamata olives, pitted
8-10 cloves of garlic, peeled
olive oil

I combined all of cauliflower, tomatoes, olives and garlic in my big-ass cast-iron pan (if you don’t have a big-ass cast-iron pan this will work just fine on a sheet pan). I gave everything a generous shower of olive oil along with some salt and pepper and tossed it to coat.

Now here’s where I went wrong. I’ve been having such success cooking potatoes in my cast iron pan that I decided to try the same method for the cauliflower (375 degrees for 40-50 minutes, stirring every ten minutes) but I think my original method is better. So, pop this into a 450 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes. The cauliflower will get caramelized on the outside and creamy on the inside and super tasty.

While the cauliflower cooked I worked on the meatballs. Of course with the revised cooking instructions there will be much less time for making meatballs, so it would probably be best to make the meatballs before the cauliflower goes in the oven. That way everything should be done about the same time.

Here’s the ingredients for the Greek meatballs:

1/2 pound ground beef
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 – 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 clove garlic, minced

In a bowl, stir together the cream, egg, anchovy paste, garlic, pepper flakes, oregano and some salt and pepper. Crumble in the feta and add the ground beef and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs. Using your hands (yes, your hands) mix together all the ingredients. Try to make a meatball and if it won’t hold together add some more bread crumbs. Mix again and try to make another meatball. If this one holds together commence making meatballs, If not, add more bread crumbs…yadda, yadda , yadda. I made meatballs that were about 3/4-inch in diameter each (but you could make yours bigger or smaller, you’ll just have to adjust cooking times).

Since I had the oven already, I decided to bake these little guys. Usually this works great (it’s how I do all my meatballs), but for some reason this time these didn’t get quite as browned as I like. So when I make these again, I will either brown them in a pan and then finish them in the oven, or start with the oven at a higher temp.

To serve, I placed some of the cauliflower and a few of the meatballs in a shallow bowl and sprinkled on a little feta cheese, a generous helping of fresh basil and a wedge of meyer lemon.

You must try this. If you have a cauliflower hater in your family, trying it roasted may convert them. And the meatballs, these meatballs, are so good.

Even without a last minute sqeeze of lemon (which added a lovely zing to this dish) all the elements here just combined to perfection. Salty, tangy, creamy perfection. Try it.