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.

Allotment Pie

Introduction
This random assortment of food all started out with me wanting to cook something where I could say, "I grew this, well all the bits that are grown."  The result was a new take on an old favourite.  I have seen it called homity pie in Devon and Cornwall where it is made with potatoes, cheddar, friend onions and (optionally) bacon in a pastry case or some  people just call it cheese pie.

Ingredients
Boiled potatoes
Beans, peas or both (cooked)
Any other veg you fancy throwing in
Fried onions
A block of feta cheese
Dried mint, if you like it.

Instructions
Mix the cooked veg
Crumble up the feta
Sprinkle over the mint
Stir it up a bit but you want a good bit of the cheese near the top 
Pop into an oven at 180 degrees for around 15 minutes until the top is a nice crispy brown in places and the rest it nicely heated through.
If you are sure that all your ingredients are hot when you mix everything together then you can get away with putting it under the grill.

Other Ideas

You might have noticed that this is a great left over meal. Prepare and cook extra veg with a meal one day, mix with fried onions, feta and herbs for a second meal the next.

It would also work using some frozen mixed veg and tinned sweetcorn.

Frozen spinach or kale could be crumbled in as well, if you are trying to increase you veg quota.  Both work really well with feta.

Feel free to use the veg that you like!

Lastly, let me know if you try it out and what you think please?