Roasted Cauliflower and Mushroom Pasta

Mid-January. Winter settles in and the routine reasserts itself with the reliability of rain: yoga at five-thirty, dashi at six, Miya up at seven, school at eight, writing from eight to noon, yoga at the studio from one to three, Miya home at three-thirty, homework and cooking and bedtime and writing again after eight. The routine is not a cage. The routine is a trellis — the structure that the life grows on, the way a vine grows on a trellis, not constrained by it but supported by it, shaped by it, made vertical by it.

I made goma tofu — sesame tofu, the temple cuisine dish made from ground sesame and kuzu starch, set into a custard-like block and served with wasabi and soy sauce. It is not tofu in the Western sense — there are no soybeans. It is entirely sesame, cooked and stirred and set, and the taste is pure sesame: nutty, rich, with a texture like silk. Fumiko did not make goma tofu — it is a Buddhist temple dish, more formal than her home cooking — but I found a recipe in a Japanese cookbook and tried it because the trying is the practice and the practice expands, always, into new territory, the way roots expand underground, finding water, finding nourishment, finding the things they need in places they have not looked before.

I am reading more about Japanese temple cuisine — shojin ryori — the vegetarian cooking of Buddhist monks that is the philosophical ancestor of much of what Fumiko cooked. The simplicity. The seasonality. The respect for the ingredient. The idea that cooking is meditation and eating is gratitude and the meal is a practice, not a product. The reading is feeding the essays and the essays are feeding the next book and the next book is still forming in the dark, the miso still fermenting, the heat not yet applied.

The homemade miso I started last summer is halfway through its fermentation. I opened the crock to check and the smell was — alive. Rich, sharp, the unmistakable smell of transformation happening in the dark. The miso is changing. I am changing. The change is invisible from outside. The change is everything from inside.

The goma tofu experiment reminded me that the practice expands — that once you start cooking with attention, with respect for the ingredient, you see that spirit everywhere. This roasted cauliflower and mushroom pasta is not temple cuisine, but it asks the same things of you: patience with the roast, attention to the browning, presence at the stove. Mushrooms and cauliflower are both foods that reward the kind of slow, unhurried heat I’ve been learning to apply — they caramelize and deepen the way that miso ferments in the dark, becoming something richer than what they started as.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 small head cauliflower, cut into small florets (about 4 cups)
8 oz cremini or shiitake mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and black pepper to taste
12 oz pasta (rigatoni or penne)
1/2 cup dry white wine or vegetable broth
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roast the vegetables. Spread cauliflower florets and sliced mushrooms in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, season generously with salt and black pepper, and toss to coat. Roast for 25–30 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until cauliflower is deeply golden and mushrooms are caramelized at the edges.
Cook the pasta. While the vegetables roast, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until just al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water before draining.
Build the sauce. In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring constantly, for about 60 seconds until fragrant. Pour in the white wine or broth and let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
Combine. Add the drained pasta to the skillet along with the roasted cauliflower and mushrooms. Add butter and Parmesan, then toss everything together, adding reserved pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce is silky and clings to the pasta.
Finish and serve. Remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice, fresh parsley, and thyme. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve immediately with additional Parmesan at the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Roasted Cauliflower and Mushroom Pasta — When the Practice Expands Into New Territory