Cauliflower and a Cheese-Like, Non-Dairy Horseradish Sauce!

We got a beautiful organic cauliflower in our Bitty Veggie box from Door To Door Organics last week and this is what I did with it!

Relevant side story:
Over the holidays I had made some fingerling potato skins with horseradish filling to take to my sister-in-laws house.  While I was there I had a fortuitous taste-bud-to-brain malfunction and I forgot what I was eating; the creamy potato skin filling tasted like it had sharp cheddar in it ... very interesting. 
Note to self - Remember horseradish when sharp cheddar is needed.
So when the cauliflower arrived, I knew what experiment I had to do.  

This is what I used;
 Whole head of cauliflower, cleaned and broken into florets
Horseradish Sauce
  1 Tbsp olive oil
  1 Tbsp rice flour
  1 cup unsweetened hemp or coconut milk
  2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
  1 Tbsp sesame tahini
  1 Tbsp horseradish
  dash of salt
  dash of garlic powder
  dash of onion powder
  1 tsp rice vinegar
Optional;
  turmeric(for coloring)
  dash of nutmeg

This is what I did;
Set the oven to 350 F.

Lightly steam the cauliflower for 5 minutes and place in an oven-proof dish with the florets facing up.

Make a roux with the oil and flour; heat the oil and mix in the flour to make a thick paste, on medium heat slowly add milk in stages as the sauce thickens. After adding the milk, slowly stir in nutritional yeast, sesame tahini, horseradish, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, rice vinegar and cook (keep stirring) for about 10 minutes until the sauce thickens. Don't forget to taste the sauce at this point and add more horseradish, salt, garlic powder or onion powder if you feel something is missing or want a stronger taste.

At this point you can add turmeric to make the sauce yellow and more cheesey-looking, it doesn't add any flavor.  I added a dash because it's good for you and I wanted to see if it really would look like a cheese sauce.  It looked more like custard and made the cauliflower look like scrambled eggs, but at least I got the turmeric benefits!

Pour the sauce over the cauliflower florets and grate some fresh nutmeg over the top.  Place the dish in the oven for 10 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked through, the sauce is bubbling and the flavors have all melded together (not sure what that looks like....must be a zen thing, when it looks ready, it means it's ready).

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Seriously you can never totally replicate a good cheese sauce, but I think this does a pretty good job.  What I was happy about was how well the horseradish went with the cauliflower. This is really a recipe for Cauliflower and Horseradish Sauce and it really should be named that, it doesn't need to hide under a pseudo cheese title so people will try it!.  It is a really nice pairing and it made me realize that I prefer cauliflower and horseradish to cauliflower and cheese - so there!