Cauliflower is about to become the new kale, according to something I read online. And that's just fine with me, because I have grown awfully tired of kale.

When a vegetable becomes nothing but a raw garnish, as kale has, a limp and lifeless ruffle at the edge of your plate, then you know its star-studded status is truly over and done with.

I suppose kale had its virtues, but there is a reason we all had to be taught to love it, and not only to love it but to contort it into all sorts of iterations, some of which were less than inviting. Raw kale in a salad, for me, is just plain roughage, and as for a kale smoothie, well, the less said the better, I feel.

And now kale is, as they say, so last year.

On to cauliflower, then, which itself offers almost as many possibilities as kale, although plate decoration maybe isn't one of them. Unlike kale, cauliflower is fully as delicious raw as it is cooked, delightful in a salad or on a tray of crudités (raw vegetables) served with a dipping sauce.

Cauliflower, a versatile vegetable

And once cauliflower is cooked, it can be turned into any number of other dishes, starting with cauliflower on its own, garnished with black olives and capers, perhaps with toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds on top. Take the leftovers of that dish, chop them up and toss over medium heat in a few tablespoons of olive oil, just long enough to brown them, and you'll have a perfect sauce for a suppertime pasta dish, in the Italian style of just-about-anything-goes-with-pasta. Call it penne al cavolfiore and tell your guests you had it last summer in Sicily.

Cauliflower is the vegetable pile's Mr Versatile. Photo: Shutterstock

Or cook the cauliflower a little longer in some chicken stock, along with a small potato cubed, until both vegetables are very tender, stir in a dollop of cream, then purée the whole thing until smooth as velvet and you will have a superbly elegant French soup to serve as a starter -- crème velouté au choufleur. And it's even more impressive with a spoonful of very fine cultured butter, maybe another dribble of cream and a scattering of fresh chives over the top.

Then there's that old-fashioned English dish called cauliflower cheese, in which the cauliflower, cooked just till you can easily break apart the florets, is arranged in a buttered dish, covered with a sauce Mornay and transferred to a hot oven until the sauce has blistered slightly and browned on top and the florets are tender.

And what is a sauce Mornay? Simple: Make a béchamel sauce with 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour, stirring together over medium-low heat until the mixture is thick and has lost its floury smell. Stir into it, a little at a time, 2 cups of very hot milk, whisking all the while, until you have a thick sauce, then add a couple of handfuls of grated cheese -- Parmigiano, cheddar, Gruyère, it almost doesn't matter as long as it's a firm cheese that's easy to grate. (This is a good way to use up leftover bits of cheese in that drawer in the refrigerator where you've hidden them all.) You can add salt, pepper, maybe some cayenne if you wish, and that's all there is to it.

Despite its pale color, cauliflower is actually one of those powerhouse brassica vegetables and a surprisingly good source of vitamin C. When shopping, look for tightly clustered clean, white heads with fresh green leaves. You'll trim off the leaves and stem for cooking, but don't discard them.

Chopped in smaller pieces, they make a nice addition to a vegetable minestrone. And what about packaged, cut florets in the supermarket produce section? Don't bother. They are a waste of money, flavor and vitamins.