Verdue al Forno

Before baking

Prior to starting the E.V.P., I had no idea what Verdue al Forno ("vegetables in the oven") was. It's basically baked zucchini with heavy cream, cheese, and breadcrumbs. Giada has a description for every recipe, sometimes containing tips or a fact about where the recipe came from. For the Verdue al Forno recipe, Giada said to feel free to use another vegetable replacing the zucchini. Not being a fan of zucchini, I decided to substitute with cauliflower, although many vegetables would be pretty tasty with cream and cheese. To start, I cut the cauliflower and shredded mozzarella & fontina (YES!) cheese. In a dish coated with olive oil, I put one layer of cauliflower, followed by salt and

After baking

pepper. I decided to add a small pinch of red pepper flakes and garlic salt to avoid any blandness. Heavy cream is poured onto the cauliflower, followed by fontina, mozzarella, and romano cheeses. Breadcrumbs are sprinkled onto the top and two more of these layers are added. The problem with using cauliflower was that I had no idea of how much time to bake it, since the time listed in the cookbook was for cooking zucchini. I decided to cook it for the time the book said, taste it, then see how tender it was. So I let the Verdue al Forno bake for 40 minutes, tasted it, and let it cook for 20 minutes more. The end result was pretty good! I thought I would absolutely love it because it sounded like my kind of dish, but it was a little boring to me. I didn't mind eating it at all, but I just wish it had some "wow" to it! Maybe I can try to improve the recipe to my liking another time!

Time Spent: 2 hours

For breakfast this morning - waffle with peaches, a drizzle of syrup, and cannoli cream :)