Vegetarian Hot Wings with Sriracha

It is freezing cold in St. Louis (today’s high is in the single digits). Luckily for me, this week has been filled with mostly in-house work. Other than a few excursions to the grocery store, and quick dog-walks, I’ve been pretty much been holed up in my warm(ish) studio shooting food and beverages. I am working on new portfolio work, and doing some testing of some new equipment. Lotsa fun!

Lately though, despite all the food and beverages that I have been shooting, I haven’t been cooking a whole lot. As you may know, when I first started shooting food I started food blogging over at Shoot To Cook. The blog was a really fun experiment (and it got me a fair amount of work) but lately I have been too busy to keep up with it. I’m not saying it’s completely dead, but it has been six months since I’ve posted there last. The unfortunate side-effect of all of the great work that I have had the opportunity to do is that I am really missing the time I used to spend in the kitchen. Cooking is a great stress reliever for me, so I try to make time for it when I can.

This week, I’m planning for our annual super bowl party this Sunday. In addition to pulled pork and regular chicken hot wings, I decided to experiment with a vegetarian option that still falls into the “food to eat during a football game with beer.” I am a big fan of i am a food blog and came across her Sriracha Roasted Cauliflower Recipe and decide to adapt that recipe for a veggie snack that resembles hotwings. My big innovation? Instead of chopping the cauliflower into small florets … I cut the cauliflower into BIG florets…which are roughly the size of hotwings! See what I did there?

The result? They don’t exactly taste like chicken, but they do taste like some of the Asian-inspired wings I’ve made in the past. I doubled the original recipe, but I think in future I’ll triple the sauce to add a bit more coverage. I also downsized the amount of Sriracha to about two teaspoons … and for me that was plenty of heat.

I’m planning lots of how-to posts and have a bunch of new work to share coming up in 2014, so stay tuned. And have a happy Super Bowl!*

*Dr. Wife and I both agree that Super Bowl Sunday should be a national holiday, and as such, the following Monday should be a holiday day as well … kind of like the Friday after Thanksgiving so everyone can recover.