Cauliflower Rice

Hello,
This week I am having a try at low carb food.  (anyone who saw me eating cake lat night was imagining things :-)).  It isn't easy to reduce the amount of carbs in your life, or at least it certainly isn't cheap.

First of all, by carbs I mean the easily digested stuff that basically turns into sugar the nanosecond it hits your system.  White bread, white rice, white pasta, instant style oats, the highly processed stuff.  The carbohydrate in whole grains, seeds and nuts is all fine as the stuff you get in vegetables and most fruit.

That said there is a hierarchy of veg and fruit as well, some contains more sugar than others but at the moment, as I sit here craving a  slice of toast and marmalade like my life depends upon it I am not going to get hung up about the relative health levels of vegetables.  All veg is good, compared to a chip butty, it is all virtuous and brilliant, let us not split hairs.

Today's recipe is cauliflower rice with "stuff".  I had tried cauliflower rice before and had been unimpressed by the soggy yuckiness of it all.  This recipe is a mix of several I have found plus some of my own tweaking.  I promise lots of flavour and not a soggy spoon of veg in sight.

Ingredients

1 large cauliflower
1 - 2 (or even 3 onions)
some vegetables - I used a handful of green beans and a couple of carrots cut quite small.
1 tablespoon olive oil
spices to taste

I used Ras Al Hanout from Tesco which was lovely.  I think it would work really well with just about of your favourite flavours.

Method

Cut the cauliflower up into quite small chunks and use a food processor to turn them into "rice."
Spread on a baking sheet with plenty of space, a deep edge would be good.
Chop and fry the onion.
Depending on your spice you might want to add it now.  Most spices taste better cooked.  The ras-al-hanout was better sprinkled over at the end.
Add the other veg, cover the pan and gently saute.
Turn on oven to 180.
When veg are nearly cooked add htem to the cauliflower.  Stir well with a fork to get the rice nicely coated in the oil and spices.
Bake in the oven, uncovered for 15 minutes.  Check after ten, you might will probably want to stir it around so it cooks evenly.

I sprinkled the spice on when it came out of the oven.
Enjoy

Quick pizza ideas

Stottie pizza

Stotties are wonderful bread rolls and loaves (depending on the size) found in North East England.  They are dense and chewy and have a shelf life of less than a day.  Once they are a bit elderly though they make great pizza bases.

Cut stottie in half.

Spread with your favourite pizza toppings, 

Grill and eat.

Pizza topping idea.

This recipe is really easy

1 to 2 tablespoons each of red pesto, tomato puree and olive oil.  Mix well and use on the pizza, stottie, french bread roll etc.   

This would also be a good way to make red pesto go a bit further if you don't quite have enough to make it go around your pasta.

I have also fried up a chopped leak and some red peppers to add to this pizza.

Dairy Free Fish Pate

Hello, it's been awhile since I posted anything here, the time just seems to get away from me at the moment.  Anyway, this is more of a record for me but below is a rough recipe for dairy free fish pate.

My little boy can't really eat much dairy and lately I have been looking at ways of getting more fish into our diet.  Like a lot of English people I really am not that confident at cooking with fish.  I can take a large salmon, stuff with ginger and butter etc and produce a very nice dinner indeed.

In fact this general recipe of fish, stuffing, cover in pastry or wrap in paper and heat in some way is a good, basic recipe for a lot of fish I suspect.  However for those days when I don't want to spend most of the weekly shopping budget on one meal, I needed some new ideas.

So here it is:

1 tin of cooked butter beans
2 fillets of smoked fish (the kind you get vac-packed in the supermarket)
lemon juice
black pepper
olive oil or other oil

Blitz in the food processor.

That is really it.  I fond that I needed about 2 tablespoons of oil because the beans are so dry.  Be generous with the lemon and black pepper as well but leave them out if your family don't like them.

Spread on toast or stuff into pitta bread with some sliced cucumber and off you go.

Original recipe

1 small tub of soft cheese
smoked fish
black pepper
lemon juice

Blitze in food processor.

Both versions are delicious but the cheese based one is really creamy.

The bean based version is a bit lower in fat, dairy free and probably has a longer shelf life if stored in the fridge.

No photos today but the Cheese ones looks a pale cream colour and the bean based version looks a lot like humus.  It isn't very photogenic but my family just ate a lot of it.

Try adding your favourite combination of herbs to change the flavour.

Leek, Potato and Pea Soup

Introduction

A while ago I finally set up a Twitter account, mainly because I needed to actually get serious about advertising my bread making courses and also to see what everyone else was talking about.  One friend summed it up as, "Facebook is everyone sharing pictures of cats, Twitter is everyone sharing pictures of cakes."  Right up my street then. 

Being on Twitter has had two positive outcomes, first of all the need to feed the ever hungry internet information beast has finally given me the kick up the proverbial I needed to start writing again and also I have found some interesting new recipes and foody ideas.  

One of these foody ideas is Meat Free Mondays.  There is nothing like having to feed small children to make you look at your diet and decide that improvements have to be made.  You can no longer get away with munching a bowl of cereal in front of the TV on an evening just because you can't be bothered and you can no longer get away with ignoring vegetables,  If you try to then the ever present parent guilt centre of your brain will light up and prod you into action or send you to the nearest chocolate bar.  

To combat this I have been trying to cook more vegetarian food.  Luckily my kids like veg, my husband likes veg and I like it too, I just get fed up with all the peeling sometimes.  The real difficulty comes in finding good recipes.   Yes, there are meat free alternatives to most meat products available but they are quite expensive, tend to be a bit dry (to my personal taste) and vegetarian bacon!  That is a reason all in itself.  If you have never experienced vegetarian bacon then you are in for, well, an experience.

All this preamble serves as an introduction to my latest favourite recipe, Leek, Potato and Pea Soup. This comes from 1000 Recipes, a small but weighty cook book that was my Mum's favourite and is now mine.  Old fashioned, no pictures and lots of assumed knowledge but the best kitchen stand by I have, even, dare I say, more often consulted than Delia.

The beauty of this recipe is that if you eat it with whole meal bread then the peas and wheat combine together to give you a full range of proteins in one meal.  This makes it an excellent choice for vegetarians.  Vitamin C from the potato and plenty of greens from the peas and leeks.  

I know that I haven't specified quantities because it all depends on whether you want it to taste of peas, leeks or potatoes the most.  For those that would like guidance I recommend 2 medium leeks to 1 potato and 3 tablespoons of peas.  Add a good pinch of stock powder and 1 sprig of mint.

Leek, Potato and Pea Soup

Chop some leeks and heat in a pan on a low heat, the idea is to sweat them, rather than brown them.

Dice some potatoes and add them to the pan.

Cover the pan and let the veg sweat for 10 to 15 minutes.  Really the longer the better here. 

Boil some water and some vegetarian stock, following the instructions on the pack. 

Once the leeks are soft add the water and stock to the pan.

Stir and leave it to come up to a simmer. 

Simmer for around ten minutes or until the potatoes are soft.

Add the peas and some mint (fresh or dried both work here) and put the lid on and wait for the soup to come back up to the boil.

Once it has come to the boil a second time it will be cooked.

Turn off the heat and allow to cook a little.

To get a smooth consistency you can use a liquidizer, food processor or similar.  You can even just use a potato masher but this will leave the leeks in one piece.  Which is fine if you like them like that or you chopped them up small to begin with.

Enjoy with some bread and let me know if you try the recipe out please.