With so many vegetables convenience-packaged these days, I am willing to bet that most of the time you walk right by the rows of heads at the market. Heads of iceberg lettuce, heads of broccoli, heads of cauliflower. They all get overlooked. Yeah, I’m guilty too.

But this past week at Trader Joe’s, a head of those little white trees beckoned up at me. I am keen on rotating our vegetable consumption so that we get a variety of vitamins, and so our daughter gets exposed to different shapes, textures, tastes, and colors.

“Buy me!” the cauliflower said. So I did. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it–after all, this was the day I forgot my Plummelo shopping list, which turned out to be a culinary disaster (true story).

(Note: Cauliflower is coming into season shortly–it’s a fall and winter crop in many places–but it’s generally available year-round.)

I took the little head home and peered at her through the crisper window for a day and a half, when I remembered a recipe I’d seen in a babyfood cookbook–whipped cauliflower–which could be mistaken by innocently oblivious husbands and children for buttery mashed potatoes. There you have it, folks–one of the secrets from my kitchen. I spend far too much time concocting strategies to fool my family.

But you know what? I put those steamed little white trees in the food processor, threw in some butter and a pinch of salt, and although my two favorite people were by then aware of my shenanigans, they admitted (in not so many words, for the 18-month-old) that they approved.

What else can you do with cauliflower? One of my favorite no-frills dinners is this Gnocchi with Roasted Cauliflower.

Read more by Sarah Fullerton