Working side-by-side with your loved one can make it difficult to know when the work day ends... and the rest of your evening begins. Anguel & I have spent way to many of our recent dinners talking about work. It’s stuff we get excited about, but yikes, sometimes we need to chill. So, we’re trying something new. In an effort to be more intentional about unplugging from work, we’ve started to schedule weekday “dinner dates”. And for us that means cozying up at home, cooking a yummy dinner for two, and cracking open a bottle of wine.

These Harissa Spiced Cauliflower Steaks were our take on a fancy date-night dinner. The classic steak-and-mashed-potatoes dishes don’t really appeal to us, but you know what does? A tender, juicy slab of cauliflower with a golden brown crust, and a sticky harissa spiced glaze. Topped with a creamy tahini drizzle. Oh, and it doesn’t take much longer than 30 minutes to make. That’s what we call sexy plant food. Are you into it?!

For the longest time my “beef" (ha) with most cauliflower steak recipes has been that it’s pretty hard to get four perfect pieces from a single head of cauliflower. What holds cauliflower steaks together is the stalk, and I don’t know where you buy your cauliflower, but most of the ones I buy don’t have stalks the size of a tree trunk. So rather than instructing you to magically produce four steaks, we’re going to cut our losses and go with two. The remaining bits of cauliflower get turned into a creamy mash. That way we can reliably use up the whole cauliflower AND nobody gets an ugly piece. It’s a win-win on all fronts. And while this two-serving recipe works perfectly for date night, if you want to serve a bigger group, simply scale it up to your liking.